The Pass Isn't Transferable

If you coach in a diverse community, the N word is something you are going to have to have a policy and plan for.

If you coach in a monolithic white community, the N word is something you are going to have to have a policy and plan for.

If you coach against teams from either of those descriptions, the N word is something you are going to have to have a policy and plan for.

If you do the math, between those three sentences, I’ve covered everyone everywhere in coaching.

No matter how badly I would love to erase that damn word from existence, it is going to come up at some point, somehow, somewhere in your coaching.

If you are lucky, it will be the soft “n***A” version of the word. That’s what today’s writing is on.

The hard R ending version of that word? I have zero tolerance for, by my coaches, my players, our opponents, their staff, their fans, whoever. That shit don’t fly with me. I will walk my team the hell off the floor until you either find the fool who used it towards us or you clear the damn arena (RIP to Coach John Thompson who showed the way on how to combat in house racism by not taking the floor until it was gone). I don’t believe the hard R needs me to write a long list of “how should I deal with this”. You don’t. You eradicate even the idea of it in your presence.

Now, the soft A is harder.

Especially if you are NOT Black (I am Samoan) but have Black players/coaches etc in your orbit who use the soft A as a term of endearment between each other (and, in fact, may come from families or communities where its usage is normalized). You are stepping into cultural and relational territory that isn't yours to simply define for them. That is not your battle, and the most I ask of my guys is “in our program spaces, in my presence, I don’t want to hear it. BUT, that is not me telling you what happens in your life away from here. That is absolutely within your agency to decide.” (NOTE: In Oregon HS hoops, even a black player saying the soft A version to another black player within earshot of a ref earns an auto ejection.)

But, you may have Hispanic, Polynesian, or even Asian players in your space who claim to have some version “a pass” to say it.

As the speaker @trippfontane explains in the MUST WATCH video above, they may actually have that pass…WITH THAT set of specific Black friends.

But that's the important distinction: permission within a relationship isn't universal permission. Those friends do not speak for the entire Black community.

That pass expires the second they try that -ish around someone from the Black community they don’t know.

And whatever permission exists inside those particular friendships doesn't automatically transfer into every other space they enter.

That pass also expires the second they try to use that word between each other from their ethnic group that isn’t Black. You don’t get to throw around that word in your group because your group doesn’t carry the history and consequences of that word on the Black Americans experience (and I say that as someone who has been mistakenly called the N word despite being from the Pasifika diaspora).

And THIS is exactly why waiting until somebody says it is a terrible coaching strategy.

I think this video is a staff meeting before the season starts viewing.

I think this video is then a shared viewing with your Black players followed by a discussion of their thoughts on it premise and statements.

Not because you're asking those players to create the policy for you or speak for every Black person. You're listening because the policy you're about to implement directly affects their experience in your program.

I think this video is then a must view for everyone in your program, TOGETHER.

Then you tell them exactly where your program stands BEFORE somebody tests the boundary.

At the very least, this video should be the basis by which you and your staff build the policy and plan for this word you KNOW has the potential to derail your season.

Coach Prompts

• What is your program’s policy around the N word, and do your players know it BEFORE an incident happens?

• Have you distinguished between setting a boundary for your team space and trying to dictate your players' language outside of it?

• If this word were used at practice or during a game tomorrow, would every coach on your staff respond consistently?

Player Prompts

• Does permission to use certain language with one group of friends mean you have permission to use it around everyone? Why or why not?

• What responsibility do you have to understand how a word may land differently with someone who doesn't know you or your intentions?

• What should happen in our team space when someone's language crosses a boundary we've already agreed upon?