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10.25.2009

twitter tip: don't call your coach a racial slur

Be careful what you Tweet. I don't know what's more stupid: the fact that a college football player would refer to one of his coaches with a racial slur, or that he didn't think he'd get in trouble for writing the message on Twitter.

UCLA freshman Randall Carroll tweeted a message to a top high school recruit where he referred to Bruins offensive coordinator Norm Chow with a racial epithet: Tweet from UCLA player's account uses racial epithet for Norm Chow.

The post, from the account of OCiAM, dated October 22, referred to the Bruins' last three games before Saturday and read:
"man oregon, stanford and cal should have been easy wins ,, but [expletive] thys [racial slur] norm chow dnt be trustin us ,, so it is what it is."
Take a wild guess and fill in the blank with your own racial slur -- it's probably what you're thinking. Carroll directed the tweet to the attention of La Canada St. Francis High running back Dietrch Riley. And oh yeah, it could be seen by the public.

Regarding the remark, Carroll tried to justify the tweet by saying:
"I was frustrated, tired of losing, I wasn't trying disrespect Norm Chow in any way. . . . He was one of the reasons I came here. I was just saying I didn't feel like he trusted us, because we are such a young bunch. I wasn't downgrading his coaching."
Seriously? Not trying to disrespect him? Criticizing the coaching is one thing -- I get it, he's a young player and he has a few things to learn -- but using the racial slur, no matter who you're talking about... that, by definition, is disrespect. That's racist!

Ridiculous. Carroll's Twitter account was apparently deactivated on Saturday. And it looks like Chow and Carroll had a conversation about using derogatory words. My guess is, that was a pretty long flight back to Los Angeles.

UPDATE: The actual text of Carroll's Tweet reveals that the racial slur in question doesn't actually refer at all to Norm Chow's Chinese heritage: Re. Randall Carroll's Tweet Directing At Norm Chow. Doesn't make what he said any less idiotic, but there it is.