TUCSON, Arizona — For the second time this college basketball season, an athletic director from a school hosting BYU has issued a public apology for “an unacceptable chant.”
The latest incident occurred Saturday night after the Cougars defeated the Arizona Wildcats 96-95 at McKale Memorial Center. As BYU players were exiting the court, the chant emanated from the Arizona student section, known as the ZonaZoo.
More than an hour after the game, Arizona Athletics issued a statement to the Deseret News and on social media apologizing for the chant, which was the exact same chant that Providence fans uttered in December and Oregon and USC have used in the past four years.
All of those schools also apologized.
The statement from Arizona Vice President and Director of Athletics Desiree’ Reed-Francois read as follows:
“Following tonight’s men’s basketball game, it was brought to our attention that an unacceptable chant occurred. On behalf of the University of Arizona Athletic Department, we apologize to BYU, their student-athletes, coaches and fans. The chant is not reflective of who we are and should not have happened.”
The offensive chant was directed at members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, colloquially known as Mormons. The church is the sponsoring institution of BYU.
The chant was “(expletive) the Mormons.”
At least one member of Arizona’s team is a member of that faith. Redshirt freshman guard Addison Arnold, from Simi Valley, California, is the grandson of former BYU head basketball coach Frank Arnold.
After the Arizona apology was posted on X, BYU’s associate director for communications and media strategy, Jon McBride, posted a statement on X that was originally given to the Salt Lake Tribune for an article published by that news outlet last month.
In part, BYU’s statement reminds fans that members of the church also help make up their own communities.
“After these kinds of chants happen, we’re always thankful for an apology from a university leader or an athletic director, and we hope that productive conversations can happen on those campuses,” the second paragraph of the statement reads.
“We hope that opposing fan bases can understand that when they are disparaging The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and/or its members, they aren’t just disparaging BYU. There are members of their community, fans of their school and even coaches and student-athletes on their teams who are members of the very faith they are chanting about.”