Duke Volleyball Player's Godmother Shows Troubling Past with Racist Remarks
Duke's Rachel Richardson was at the center of an alleged racist attack game during a volleyball game at Smith Fieldhouse in Provo, Utah, on Friday against the BYU Cougars.
Richardson's godmother Lesa Pamplin brought attention to the alleged incident by tweeting the accusations. She is running a concurrent campaign to be elected as a circuit court judge in Fort Worth, Texas.
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Pamplin shared Richardson's experience:
"My Goddaughter is the only Black starter for Dukes volleyball team," Pamplin tweeted. "While playing yesterday, she was called a n****r every time she served. She was threatened by a white male that told her to watch her back going to the team bus. A police officer had to be put by their bench."
No Audio or Footage Available
With no audio/video footage available to corroborate Pamplin's account of what happened to Richardson, and the emergence of the police report that stated no inappropriate language was heard, the public started to question Pamplin's accusation of racism.
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People looking for evidence of the racial slur noticed a history of racist rhetoric in Pamplin's history on Twitter.
One unnamed source reached out to OutKick to highlight Pamplin's history of bashing conservatives and white people, which has become its own troupe with allegations of racism in past years.
Pamplin's Troubling Tweets
From calling white people "crackers" and describing white supremacy as the looming doom over the nation, Pamplin's profile has been checking the boxes of a racially-focused political figure seeking to gain attention or merit off alleged victimhood.
Shortly after tweeting Richardson's story, Pamplin switched her Twitter account to private.
Her past tweets include:
When asked on Twitter why the audio from BYUtv's stream did not feature the racist slur aimed at Richardson in the fourth set, according to the player's account, Pamplin responded, "5,700 folks attended that game. The taunts got louder and louder when the police came to the bench."
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Additional reporting on behalf of The Cougar Chronicle noted that a man positioned away from BYU's student section was escorted out of the game by security, though the reasoning was for "verbal interference" during the game rather than for a slur. He was also described as "mentally challenged."
Richardson shared the following with ESPN's Holly Rowe regarding her encounter: "We told our coaches, and they went to the officials. The officials, we saw them speaking with the BYU staff, and then we were told someone was speaking to the student section and I was, ‘All right.’"
One statement provided by on-campus police alleged that the man in question appeared to have "Asperger's or autism." Still, the unknown identity of the heckler, days after the incident, leaves more questions than answers regarding Pamplin's account.
All Sides Remain Quiet
We are all waiting to see if the non-student fan (or anyone) truly did hurl a racist slur at Richardson; if the institutions botched the disciplining of the heckler; or if Pamplin deliberately used Richardson's experience with the heckler to propel her political platform.
BYU and Duke's respective athletic departments remain tepid with explicitly identifying the "racist" fan, as does Richardson.
OutKick reached out to Pamplin's office for comment and received no response. Stay tuned with OutKick as the story develops.
