The latest example of someone showing their rear end while athletes opted to show solidarity against racism came from the world of Oklahoma high school basketball. Prior to a game between Norman High School-Midwest City in the quarterfinals of the Oklahoma 6A State Girl’s Basketball Tournament, and while “The Star-Spangled Banner” played, Norman’s entire team took a knee.
A hot mic of the broadcast of the game caught one of the individuals calling the game, whose name is Matt Rowan, ridiculing Norman’s players, saying multiple expletives and using the n-word to describe them. A video of the incident, as tweeted out by Norman’s coach, can be viewed here.
A statement that began circulating in the aftermath by Rowan attempted to apologize for what happened. His excuse for what happened is that he, a Type 1 diabetic, was in the midst of a blood sugar spike.
The announcer who made the racist statements is partially blaming it on low blood sugar. pic.twitter.com/6cTwIZdJZI
— Dylan Goforth (@DGoforth918) March 12, 2021
It is, of course, absurd to blame saying something extremely racist and derogatory on diabetes, and it is certainly not new that a person brings up their religious beliefs as they apologized for getting exposed as a bad person. In a statement after this occurred, David Jackson, the head of the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activities Association, announced that the crew from this game won’t call games anymore.
“While we are currently investigating the incident, this crew will not be doing any more games for the remainder of our championships,” Jackson said. “This kind of behavior will never be tolerated by anyone representing the NFHS or OSSAA.”