Suspended UMBC Women's Lacrosse Players Issue Apology
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Public apologies. Four of the five female UMBC lacrosse players are saying sorry. They suspended from the team for social media comments threatening to harm--even kill--their own teammates.
Derek Valcourt has more on the scandal and what those suspended players now have to say for themselves.
They're using words like regret, inexcusable and utterly inappropriate after what they thought was a private online conversation that brought them public shame.
Camaraderie is hard to find these days for the UMBC women's lacrosse team after group texts from some of the team's apparently jealous veteran players bashing their freshman teammates were made public.
Three sophomores, a junior and a senior are now indefinitely suspended from the team after dozens of nasty online comments in a group chat called "Sophomores Rule" that included threats to harm the freshmen--even kill them.
The suspended players and their parents hired crisis communications expert Rob Weinhold to help navigate the public outrage over their actions. Four of the five players issued a written apology:
"First and foremost, our hurtful, destructive words and tone are absolutely inexcusable on many levels. Our stance was utterly inappropriate and we are deeply sorry to the many we negatively impacted, particularly our hard-working teammates who deserve much better. Words cannot express our sense of regret and disappointment in ourselves. We know that everyone deserves to be treated with the utmost dignity and respect—we let our emotions get the best of us over time and we failed.
While repeatedly asked to lend our perspective about the many elements which caused the UMBC women's lacrosse situation to escalate, we have been, and continue to be, focused on working privately with university leadership to move forward. Our goal is to humbly work through this difficult situation with hopes of achieving an outcome that makes the best long-term sense for all involved. Thank you for respecting our decision to handle this matter internally at this time."
Valcourt: "A lot of the message had harm behind it, physical harm. Did they ever physically intend to harm or threaten anyone?"
Weinhold: "They say no. What this was was a group of young women who'd become very frustrated with some of the occurrences within the team dynamic and what they say were privately venting to one another. This obviously has since become a public point of national discussion, one with which they're very embarrassed and humiliated by, but at no point would they ever have suggested or say that they really intended to hurt anyone else."
Weinhold says all five girls have learned tough life lessons and hope this mistake doesn't follow them for the rest of their lives.
The university says it is in the middle of a full investigation into the incident and it's not ruling out the possibility of further disciplinary action against the five players who are still enrolled as students.
Practice goes on as normal for the rest of the women's lacrosse team. They a have home game this Saturday at noon against Binghamton.