Cornell football commit kicked off team after using N-word on Snapchat
A star running back from Morristown, N.J., has been booted from the Cornell football team after he was recorded using a racial slur, The Post confirmed.
Nate Panza, who was slated to attend Cornell in the fall after rushing for more than 1,200 yards and 17 touchdowns during his senior year at Morristown-Beard, was heard saying “f–k that n—-r” in a Snapchat video recorded early Sunday morning and subsequently shared to other social media outlets.
A shirtless Panza was off-screen when he was heard uttering the slur. He could then be seen on video asking his classmate behind the camera, Adam Giaquinto, not to post the video.
Giaquinto then used the N-word in reference to George Floyd, the black man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, which set off nationwide protests of racial injustice and police brutality.
Panza then tells Giaquinto, “you can’t say that.”
Panza deleted his social media accounts, but others shared the video.
“Cornell football was made aware of the video early Sunday afternoon,” Andy Noel, director of Athletics and Physical Education at Cornell University, said in a statement to The Post. “After viewing it, head football coach, David Archer, made the decision to rescind the individual’s offer to join the team in the fall. There is no room for this behavior in Cornell Athletics.”
The Cornell Daily Sun student newspaper was the first to report that Panza was removed from the football team.
“A video was taken of me using a word that is offensive and hurtful,” Panza wrote in a statement to the Daily Sun. “The word has a long history of cruelty for the black community and is simply wrong. I am heartbroken I have hurt people; those I know and those I do not. I take full responsibility for my actions… I do not believe that my language that night aligns with who I have tried to be as a person, the values I live by or the manner in which I have conducted myself as an athlete. My immediate reaction to the video was to reach out to my entire high school community to offer my sincerest apologies.”
The @blackatcornell twitter account, as well as a student organization named Cornell Students for Black Lives, helped bring the video to light and asked people to notify Cornell’s administration.
It is unclear at this time whether Panza’s admission status to the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management will remain intact.
Giaquinto is headed to the University of Richmond, which tweeted that it would be investigating the video.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/06/23/nate-panza-cornell-football-commit-booted-after-using-n-word/
Photo Credit: twitter