The fallout continues from a video showing members of a University of Oklahoma fraternity engaged in a racist chant, and it’s starting to affect the football team.
Jean Delance, a four-star offensive lineman who had committed to the Sooners in November, decided to re-open his recruitment after seeing the video.
“Very uneducated people. I wouldn’t want my son or child to go there or to anywhere like that,” Delance told CBS 11 in Dallas-Fort Worth on Monday. “It was just very disturbing to me. I didn’t like it.”
The video has had a profound effect on athletes already on campus as well. Linebacker Eric Striker, a team captain, took to Snapchat to post an expletive-filled rant against the fraternity.
Warning: Continuous profanity
“I’m so motherf—ing serious right now,” he yelled. “SAE just f—ed it up for all you f—ing white fraternities. F— all you b—-es. … [These] are the same motherf—ers shaking our hands, giving us hugs, telling us how you really love us — f— you phony-ass, fraud-ass b—-es.”
On Monday, Oklahoma football players — accompanied by head coach Bob Stoops — skipped practice to protest the SAE video.
Although the players did not speak to the media, Striker reached out to The Oklahoman to further explain the feelings behind his Snapchat diatribe.
“I want to apologize if I offended anybody with my curse words,” he told the newspaper. “I’m just very hurt. It’s 2015, and this is still happening.”
Striker added that plenty of Oklahoma students don’t know much about other cultures, but are receptive to change.
“A lot of these kids coming in here don’t know anything about other races,” he continued. “I’ve taken African-American courses with white people, and they’ve had their whole minds changed … I hope this message reaches all across the country, to kids coming up in Little League and on through high school ball. You’re gonna do your thing, but don’t rely on football. You are a human being. You are a person.”