Mississippi State’s Football Coach Mike Leach Apologized for Coronavirus Noose Joke

Photo Credit: Drew McKenzie, Sportspress Northwest

The coach of Mississippi State’s football team Mike Leach felt a coronavirus joke involving a noose was funny this Thursday. The jokes was a tweet of a woman knitting a noose captioned with, “After 2 weeks of quarantine with her husband, Gertrude decided to knit him a scarf.” The “scarf” was a rope she apparently wanted to tie around his neck to kill him. Now let’s put this in perspective. Mississippi had 581 lynchings from 1882 to 1968, the highest of any state in the country so already, that’s a sensitive subject there so people are less likely to find it funny and we’re certain his black players didn’t. Could it have been harmless? Yes, but I’m going to side eye and possibly feel just a little uncomfortable around someone I technically work for making lynching jokes.

Defensive lineman Fabien Lovett responded to the tweet with ‘WTF’ with Senior defensive end Kobe Jones replying saying, “Facts. He tripping. the coach apologized, with a bit of passive aggressiveness. He said, “Facts. He tripping.” Here’s the problem. The question isn’t IF what he said was offensive. It is 100% clear it was offensive as evidenced by both the coverage and response of people on his team. Passive racial remarks should not be allowed.

This should surprise no one considering how they’re represented by Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith who also made a hanging joke. In 2018 she joked about how if a cattle rancher supporter of hers invited her to a public hanging she would be there right in the front row. No, there is no nuance to lynching that is acceptable in society. Trauma of the mistreatment of minorities shouldn’t be poked at for your personal enjoyment, but I digress. At least Leach apologized and hopefully his stupid a** doesn’t repeat it again. If so, his removal should be considered.