Words by Nick Slay
It took a parent blowing the whistle on Facebook for a Cincinnati youth league to ban a team using racial slurs on their basketball jerseys.
The Cincinnati Premier Youth Basketball League dismissed the Kings Mills, Ohio team apparently after learning that the youngsters were sporting jerseys with words like, “Knee Grow”, The Wet Dream Team”, and “Coon” on the back where player name are supposed to go. As originally reported by Yahoo News and WLWT5 NBC, Tory Rue noticed about 4 weeks into the season the uniforms appeared on the hardwood.
Rue, a concerned parent took to Facebook to voice his alarm and disappointment over the situation. On his Facebook post he remarked:
“A Rec league or not, please explain how this is even remotely considered appropriate for a high school basketball game. From a team name referencing sexual conduct to offensive and racist nicknames…While I applaud the representatives of the WCYBA league, I strongly question the judgment and character of the parents and league reps for Kings, said Rue.
Rue went on to say further into the post,
“Wet Dream Team”, “Knee Grow (Negro)”, “Coon (Another racial slur, and no your real name being Kuhn doesn’t make it any better!)“, and “Dirp Dirp” just to name a few. Could you imagine being an African American high school kid and seeing these things on the jerseys of the team you are playing and how uncomfortable and unsafe they would feel?? Then a team page, again representing Kings League, with vulgar language. Beyond disrespectful.”
Tory Rue followed up that this wasn’t a typo or mistake, that it was blatantly done referencing the companion social media pages that team members created. He also pointed out that the teens used the pages to badger other teams and call them names as well. It seems that Rue’s outrage is founded because he defends that it was purposeful due to the fact that these jerseys had to have been creatively thought out, printed, paid for and worn. He uses this to make a larger point that adults had to be in on the creation process.
Even though The Kings local school district and coach Walt Gill apologized for the “misjudgement.” But how did it get this far? It also begs the question was Rue the first parent to notice or at least the first parent to take some kind of action. Even the game reps had to be spoken to before the game was ended for the night. The larger problem is, adults on many levels saw these jerseys on and off the basketball court and nothing was done. The whole incident even prompted the president of the local chapter of the NAACP to weigh in over the controversy.
Tory Rue’s full Facebook post can be seen here:
A Rec league or not, please explain how this is even remotely considered appropriate for a high school basketball game. …
Posted by Tony Rue on Sunday, January 7, 2018
