By Wonderwall.com Editors
3:00am PDT, Apr 4, 2024
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Angel Reese and her LSU Tigers teammates’ season-ending loss to Caitlin Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes on April 1 was the most-watched girls’s faculty basketball sport in historical past, in keeping with Nielsen.
The subsequent day, nevertheless, it was LSU’s pregame actions that caught the eye of Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry. In a submit on X, the conservative Louisiana lawmaker slammed his state’s beloved NCAA staff for not being on the court docket when the “Star-Spangled Banner” performed, whereas Iowa’s staff was. He then urged athletic scholarships must be contingent on college students’ observance of pre-game anthems.
“It’s time that each one faculty boards, together with Regent [sic], put a coverage in place that scholar athletes be current for the nationwide anthem or danger their athletic scholarship,” he wrote partly.
In a press convention after the sport, LSU Head Coach Kim Mulkey, who has gained 4 nationwide titles as a coach, mentioned lacking the anthem was not intentional and that they had been within the locker room going by means of their sport prep.
Faculty groups routinely skip the anthem, as each USC and UConn’s girls’s basketball groups seem to have carried out hours earlier than LSU performed. The governor’s feedback — which surfaced after a clip of the nationwide anthem’s pregame broadcast went viral on the far-right account Libs of TikTok, in keeping with the Louisiana Illuminator — sparked a storm of reactions on social media and past.
Preserve studying to see Landry’s full submit, Coach Mulkey’s response and extra…
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“My mom coached girls’s highschool basketball in the course of the top of desegregation, nobody has a higher respect for the game and for Coach Mulkey. Nonetheless, above respect for that sport is a deeper respect for those who serve to guard us and unite us beneath one flag!
It’s time that each one faculty boards, together with Regent, put a coverage in place that scholar athletes be current for the nationwide anthem or danger their athletic scholarship! This can be a matter of respect that each one collegiate coaches ought to instill.” –Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, on X
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“I am sorry, pay attention, that is nothing deliberately carried out,” LSU Coach Kim Mulkey instructed reporters when requested concerning the nationwide anthem throughout a postgame press convention on April 1.
“Actually I do not even know when the anthem was performed. We form of have a routine the place we’re on the ground after which they arrive off on the 12-minute mark. We simply are available in and do our pregame stuff,” she added.
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“The pretend outrage over it is a inform. … And suggesting a Kim Mulkey-coached staff is by some means making a political assertion is hilarious for thus many causes that a few of these ‘new followers’ do not even perceive.
If there have been ever a second for all LSU athletes to take a collective stand and for potential recruits to look in a special path…
Additionally … if there have been ever a time for Kim Mulkey and different LSU coaches to take a public stand …. Trigger remember the LSU soccer staff apparently additionally has not been on the sector for the anthem…” -sportscaster and journalist Jemele Hill, on X
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“In the event you ever go to an precise LSU sport, you may see that they are by no means on the court docket for the anthem. It is that easy. I’ve lined them for 3 years they usually’ve by no means been.
Neither LSU basketball nor LSU soccer are out for the nationwide anthem. That is the purpose. This wasn’t a one-time incident. Clarifying for the nationwide media who would not cowl both staff day in and day trip. That’s all!” –Baton Rouge Proud sportscaster Chessa Bouche, on X
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“Within the America that we know, you are on the concession stand, the anthem begins, you throw down your meals, you run to search out the flag. You chuck your hat, you do something you’ll be able to to be there when the nationwide anthem is sung, whether or not it is Little League or March Insanity or no matter it could be.” –Fox Information anchor Sandra Smith, talking to Gov. Jeff Landry on the April 3 version of “America Studies”
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“Our basketball applications haven’t been on the court docket for the anthem for the final a number of seasons. Normally the anthem is performed 12 minutes earlier than the sport when the staff is within the locker room doing remaining preparations.” –LSU athletics spokesperson Cody Worsham mentioned in a press release
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“I am not calling out the gamers or Coach Mulkey. … I simply despatched out a letter to every considered one of our faculty boards telling them that these faculty boards ought to put in place a coverage that respects the nationwide anthem. The nationwide anthem is as a lot part of American sports activities because the precise sport that is being performed. And the truth that there’s not a coverage on the market that claims ‘respect the flag and respect those who go on the market and shield us’ is de facto disrespectful in itself. So it is unlucky that LSU was not there on the specific time Iowa was on the sector, [which] highlighted the actual drawback. What we’re gonna do is figure in Louisiana to … actually have civics and civility, all of us have to be united beneath one flag and respect that anthem.” –Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, on the April 3 version of Fox’s “America Studies”
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Different officers who’ve responded to the governor’s feedback about scholarships being contingent on observance of the nationwide anthem embrace the College of Louisiana System Board of Supervisors chair Jimmy Clarke, who instructed the Louisiana Illuminator, “I see some difficulties in attempting to implement one thing like that.”
Kim Hunter Reed, Louisiana’s Commissioner of Increased Schooling, instructed the outlet the board of regents Landry referred to in his preliminary submit has no authority over scholarship-related selections.