Greg McDermott, the coach of Creighton’s men’s basketball team, was suspended on the eve of the NCAA tournament after he admitted to telling his players that they needed to “stay in the field” in a post-game speech.
McDermott admitted making comments in the locker room on Saturday after Bluejays lost 77-69 in 14th place in the ranking, in Xavier. McDermott, on its own, told the players: “Guys, we have to be together. We need both feet inside. I need everyone to stay on the plantation. I can’t let anyone leave the plantation. “
He trained the Bluejays on Wednesday night, a 72-60 loss to No. 10 Villanova, and the university announced the suspension on Thursday. At his postgame virtual press conference that night, McDermott admitted to making “a terrible mistake”, but declined to answer questions about his insensitive comments.
“The pain I caused our players, who see me as a mentor and leader – the pain I saw in their eyes – was immense,” he said.
The duration of the suspension was not disclosed, but it will initially include the team’s last game in the regular season – Bluejays’ senior day – on Saturday against Butler. After that game, Creighton will travel to New York for the Big East championship. With 17-8 and ranked in the top 25, he is projected as number 5 in the NCAA tournament that starts in two weeks.
Creighton sports director Bruce Rasmussen said in a statement announcing the suspension that McDermott’s comments “were not in line with Creighton’s commitment to racial equality, diversity and respect”.
“Other sanctions are still being considered, and not all will be shared publicly”, Rasmussen said. McDermott again published the statement on his Twitter account and said he would accept the punishment.
“I made a mistake and I recognize it,” he wrote.
Asked after Wednesday’s game against Villanova about his comments to the team or any potential punishment he faced from the university, McDermott declined to respond.
On Tuesday, McDermott apologized for using a “terribly inappropriate analogy,” which he said he recognized immediately. He said that he had never used this analogy, with its allusion to slavery.
McDermott said he offered to resign, but his players refused. “If they had chosen me to leave, I would have left, but that is not what they wanted,” he said in a radio interview.
Creighton’s players did not speak publicly about McDermott’s comments. Damien Jefferson, who spoke to reporters after the game against Villanova on Wednesday, said he would not answer questions about the incident.
But Terrence Rencher, the only black assistant coach on McDermott’s team, said the word “plantation” had a “dark and painful history”.
Like many teams this season, Creighton was involved in promoting racial justice efforts. Players have the word “equality” and a Black Lives Matter patch on their uniforms.
But amid increased player activism and awareness, college sports have had repeated incidents involving racist coach comments. Last June, a fencing technician in St. John’s was fired after a video appeared in which he made disparaging comments about blacks. In October, Pat Chambers, the Penn State men’s basketball coach, resigned after allegations that he had referred to a rope around a player’s neck.
And in January, a Tennessee-Chattanooga football coach lost his job after defaming Stacey Abrams and the state of Georgia in a tweet that perpetuated baseless allegations of electoral fraud, comments that his university chancellor labeled “hateful, hurtful and false”.