The full apology letters from the team members and coaches

To: Students, Faculty, and Staff

From: Wheaton Athletics

Subject: Our Apology for Saturday Night Incident

Last night, our football team held our annual competition night. Competition night is a fun team building activity composed of a variety of non-football games that occur in the SRC. The first part of competition night is our opening ceremonies where each group comes out and performs a short skit. My group of 20 teammates decided to integrate parodies of several movies (including Bad Boys II) into our skit. Bad Boys II is a movie that includes a brief parody of the Ku Klux Klan. We performed a similar parody wearing white hoods and robes, and carrying Confederate flags. Students who may have seen the skit or images from the skit may not have understood the context we intended it to have.

The intention of our skit was to be satirical, much like the movies we were imitating. Unfortunately, there was a lapse in our judgment. We made a mistake. Our error was thinking that the KKK and Confederate symbols would be understood in the satirical way we intended, and we did not fully consider the hurtful meanings these symbols carry and the terrible evil that has been carried out under them. We, as a team, now understand this skit was inappropriate and offensive. I, on behalf of the football team, would like to apologize for any hurt we have caused through our actions. There were several black male students in the group. As a black male, a team captain, and the leader of the group that performed the skit, I should have understood that KKK and Confederate symbols are not funny in any context. We hope the campus community will forgive us for our actions, and we would like to encourage anyone with additional questions to contact Wes Cannonier '16, or me, Josh Aldrin '16.

Letter from the coaches:

As coaches of the football team at Wheaton College, our primary responsibility is to uphold the Biblical values and principles on which this institution is built by mentoring the student-athletes in the football program to make right choices. When the event described above took place last night, the head football coach was not on campus, leaving us in charge of the team during the competition. We failed the team and campus in our responsibility of ensuring that members of the football team were living up to the standard of moral behavior that is expected of us as Christians, campus leaders, and mentors of students on this campus. We recognize that the events that occurred are racially insensitive, regardless of the intent of the group leadership, and want to express our deep regret for allowing this to occur. We intend to use this as a personal learning experience. Campus leaders in racial reconciliation will help us discuss with the team how we can reflect on what has happened in order to prevent events like this from occurring in the future.

Josiah Sears, Assistant Football Coach

Jordan Langs, Assistant Football Coach