During the first game of the College World Series between Mississippi State and Vanderbilt University, parents of some of the players were "subjected to racist slurs," Sports Illustrated reports.
Athletic directors from both schools have since condemned the incident on Monday.
“I am deeply troubled that some of our student-athlete parents were subjected to racist slurs during last night's game," Candice Storey Lee, Vanderbilt’s athletic director wrote in a tweet. "This is absolutely unacceptable and disgraceful behavior, and such hateful language has no place anywhere in our society."
"To the family members who were impacted, please know that you have my full support,” she added.” And you absolutely have the wholehearted support of not only Vanderbilt Athletics but all of Commodore Nation.”
I am deeply troubled that some of our student-athlete parents were subjected to racist slurs during last night's game. This is absolutely unacceptable and disgraceful behavior, and such hateful language has no place anywhere in our society.
— Candice Storey Lee (@VandyAD) June 29, 2021
Echoing similar sentiments, Mississippi State Athletic Director John Cohen released a statement condemning the behavior.
“We join Vanderbilt in declaring such behavior unacceptable and in direct conflict with the values of both institutions and our fan bases,” Cohen shared in a statement on Twitter.
“The college world series serves as a celebration of the entire sport of college baseball. Highly inappropriate events must neither be tolerated nor allowed to detract from the on-the-field accomplishments of the student-athletes and their teams who have earned the right to participate on this national stage,” he added.
— John Cohen (@JohnCohenAD) June 29, 2021
Clinton Yates, a columnist for ESPN’s The Undefeated, who was covering the game, appeared on The Paul Finebaum Show on Tuesday and gave an eyewitness account of the racist environment that the Vanderbilt baseball players' parents endured during the game.
"Basically what occurred was, as soon as the game got out of hand, the entire level of the discourse went up tremendously in terms of the chirping, in terms of the such-and-such," Yates recalled.
"And when it got to the level of what we'll just call: the word you're not supposed to say. And that happened on multiple occasions when, finally, they had to decide that police needed to get involved," he continued.
Yates recalled that the section where the Vanderbilt players' parents were sitting before the game quickly turned into a racially charged environment.
"I went down before the game, and you could tell the environment was hostile," Yates said. "When I went down there the second time, it was a wildly different environment. We're hearing a lot of chirping that's on the line of things — what are you going to call them slurs, are you going to call them offensive.”
In an official statement, the NCAA came out forcefully against the use of racist language.
“Any parties responsible for unacceptable actions during the games will be removed by stadium security,” the NCAA statement read.
