A white elderly high school basketball announcer in Oklahoma was removed during halftime on Friday after calling the names of players on the opposing team "disgusting."

The announcer, whose name the school declined to release, was calling out the names during a girls basketball game between Newkirk High School and Crooked Oak High School in Oklahoma, reports Yahoo Sport. 

"Now their names are pretty disgusting, but I’m going to try to call them out,” the announcer said as he began to announce the Crooked Oak team.

In the video, you can hear the girls on the team and one mother, Lorna Pollard, question how he could say something like that to children. Pollard posted the video on Facebook and wrote a lengthy post about what happened. 

Superintendent of Newkirk Public Schools Brady Barnes released a statement after the game apologizing for the incident.

On Facebook, many people affiliated with Newkirk High School defended the announcer, saying he is a very old man who is sick and simply made a mistake. Others said he could not be racist because one of his grandchildren is Black. 

One of his family members apologized for the incident as well and shared a photo of him with his Black family member, claiming he could not be racist because of the photo.

"To those who feel offended by this I totally understand. To the team, parents, and the community who were hurt, I extend my apology for what you felt in that moment. If I only heard the video I too would be appalled. But let me shed a little light on the man being attacked here, the man being called a racist. The following is a picture of him with his granddaughter, whom he helped raised and loves dearly. This is not racism. This is not a man who would purposely try to insult someone because of their name. He is truly a kind soul that has trouble finding his words after a stroke and being in his 80’s doesn’t help either," wrote Randi Middleton Peterson on Facebook. 

"I can see the anger that this would initially cause but look into it some and you will see the truth about a kind old man that was embarrassed he would say these kids names wrong, and in trying to apologize in advance for it chose the wrong word and feels incredibly sorry for it. We’ve got to stop the hate," Peterson added.

That did little to stop the controversy over his statement, which was said clearly and loudly over the speakers as the girls from Crooked Oak prepared to play in the district championship. In spite of the statement from the announcer, Crooked Oak managed to win its first title in over 20 years. The team has a number of Black and Native American players.

“It should be a very big accomplishment, but it’s kind of getting taken away from us by something we had no control over, something as simple as having different names,” one of the teammates said in an interview with local news outlet KOCO.

"A lot of people are calling it a mistake because he was an older man, so we'd like to say that if it was a mistake, you could have stopped at that very moment when you said it or the school could've stopped him at that very moment and apologized," another player told KOCO.

The backlash online was swift on both Facebook and Twitter.

To make the girls feel better about their win, Pollard shared a photo of the champions, lauding them for their play and for their beautiful names.

"Beautiful girls…Beautiful names! Haley Lloyd, Jaiana Wiggins, Itzel Cedillos, Iyana Freeman, Esme Castañeda. #makethisgoviral," the post read. 

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