*A longtime high school football referee has been suspended by the Texas Association of Sports Officials for the rest of the 2019 season after audio surfaced of his racist rant during a phone call with a jilted colleague.
via Deadspin:
Mike Atkinson, who has been a referee for 45 years, was exposed in a lawsuit filed by Joe Machol, a longtime high school and college official who believed that he was unfairly removed from a position within TASO, according to the Houston Chronicle. Michol’s suit included Atkinson’s racist remarks, which came “within the past year” on a phone call with another high school official who had a dispute with TASO. (According to a different Chronicle post, that official had been suspended by the association after they were arrested for a DUI and failed to report it.)
Atkinson “has fielded all-white crews for games for the majority of his career,” the report states. He admitted to using the dreaded N-word during the conversation with Machol but denies being a racist because he’s an avid watcher of BET (Black Entertainment Television)…. yeah, he really said that.
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Should a referee who says the N-word be allowed to call games? The story in the Chronicle was featured on #HSS. Here is the audio of perhaps the best high school football referee in Texas saying the N-word. pic.twitter.com/DjW3vDUveg
— Houston Sports Show (@HoustonShow) June 4, 2019
“They’re putting all this out there that I’m a big-time racist and all this,” Atkinson said. “For the people that know me, they know that’s not true.”
He wants folks to know that he does not regularly use the N-word.
“I know what it sounds like when you hear those clips,” he said. “But I’m talking to (the person who made the recordings) in a private conversation, and he’s using the word, and I said it a couple times,” he added.
“I’m a jokester. I like to listen to things. I watch Black Entertainment Television all the time because I think it’s hilarious. I may have picked up something … I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Atkinson told the Chronicle he had no issues with having a black person on his crew if he could find a good one.
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