It's a familiar scene for many athletes. The last few minutes in the locker room before the game, when teammates and coaches come together to motivate each other with encouraging words and prayers. But imagine if the word used to amp up the team was the N-word.
That was the case at Kenmore East High School near Buffalo, New York, where about a dozen girls varsity basketball players were suspended for using a racial slur as part of their regular pre-game locker room chant, BuffaloNews.com reports.
According to sophomore Tyra Batts, the team's only black player this year, players would hold hands before the game, pray together and then yell "One, two, three [N-word]!" before going out onto the court. Batts said she was shocked and spoke out against the tradition when she first witnessed it before the team's opening game on Dec. 2, but felt outnumbered by her teammates.
"I said, 'You're not allowed to say that word because I don't like that word,'" she told the news outlet. "They said, 'You know we're not racist, Tyra. It's just a word, not a label.'"
According to The Buffalo News, the girls used their short amount of private locker room time to say the chant after coaches and other adults had left, and Batts didn't initially report the tradition. Administrators only learned about the ritual after a fight broke out between Batts and a teammate who called her "a black piece of s---t" after practice. Both girls were suspended for fighting. But once they were informed, the faculty said they sprung into action.
"The minute an adult knew," Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda School District superintendent Mark P. Mondanaro told the news outlet. "We started our inquiry and investigation."
Batts' original long-term suspension for fighting was reduced after the principal learned of the racial allegations, and Mondanaro said he personally apologized to her and her family. He also issued a statement condemning the incident.
"This type of insensitivity to one of our students is wrong, unacceptable, unfortunate, and will never, ever be tolerated," he said.
Although Batts said her teammates told her the chant was a tradition spanning several years, some former players took to Twitter, expressing their disgust of the behavior and showing little knowledge of any such ritual, New York Daily News reports.
"You (racist) b---h," one 2010 graduate tweeted. "Glad I'm out of there."
Another student said, "Haha oh yeah that Ken East crap that's going on. I want no part in that."
According to The Buffalo News, the players face the following disciplinary measures:
- All Kenmore East High School varsity girls basketball team practices have been suspended through the rest of this week.
- Saturday's scheduled game against Olean has been postponed.
- The related team field trip to St. Bonaventure University has been canceled.
- The student athletes will all serve a one-game suspension by the end of the season, at games to be determined at a later date. It's not expected that the girls would all be suspended for the same game, which would result in a forfeited game.
- Mondanaro is voluntarily rescinding last year's Niagara Frontier League Sportsmanship Award for the entire school.
- Students who engaged in the chant will receive a two-day, out-of-school suspension.
- The student athletes will be required to participate in cultural sensitivity training, which is being arranged through an outside agency.
Batts said she is willing to play at the junior varsity level for another year to avoid further interaction with the varsity players.
"It just wouldn't be safe," she said. "There would be a lot of conflict going on."