On Thursday, the girls basketball team from Norman Midwest City High School played in the Oklahoma 6A basketball tournament. The contest is hosted live by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Network.
A video of the live stream shows that when the Norman players knelt during the National Anthem, one of the announcers started throwing insults at them.
“Are they kneeling? F ** king n *** ers,” the person hears say.
“I hope Norman gets their ass kicked,” said the unnamed speaker.
After a short pause, with the national anthem still playing, the insults continued.
“F ** k them. I hope they lose.”
“Come Midwest City – are they going to kneel like that? Hell no,” the announcer said.
The person uses the same obstructions one more time before the sound on the recording is completely cut out.
The school district says in its statement that the broadcasters were contracted by the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activity Association (OSSAA) for the state tournament.
“While we are currently investigating the incident, this crew will not be playing any more games for the rest of our championship,” the statement read.
OSSAA added that “this kind of behavior will never be tolerated by anyone representing the NFHS or OSSAA.”
“The thoughts expressed do not in any way represent the NFHS network and we are outraged that they have found their way to our production,” the organization said in a statement. “We are investigating the incident aggressively and immediately severed ties with the third-party production team involved.”
Norman’s team won the match 53-40. In the match, according to TD O’Hara, the athletics director of the district, the team was number 1 in their series with a 17-0 record.