Naz was the story.
It was a pump-fake, behind-the-back, if-you-blinked-you’d-miss-it kinda story.
Still, like too many other stories, he was the story. All about him. His lost promise. His choice to leave the team. A great opportunity in a new country. Those high flying dunks we’ll never see again.
Carter: see ya. (Lydia Ely, UW Daily)
And like too many other stories, the victims were lost in the ether. They weren’t the story. Their pain, their confusion, their newfound status as targets of threats and accusations — none of that was the story. Until one of them stepped up and said something. Because nobody else, not those whose job it was to say something, not those whose job it was to protect her, nobody else was going to say anything.
So this post won’t be about him. This post is just a bunch of baffled questions.
But to review, before we get to that:
- Nahziah Carter was suspended from Husky basketball in October for violation of student codes. No clarification was given to the press.
- When pushed for details, Coach Hopkins hoped Naz could return to the team.
- December 4, Carter announced he would leave UW to pursue a professional career. Sources had him bound for Melbourne United in Australia. Hopkins confirmed that Carter chose to leave the program. Hopkins said this would be best for Carter.
- Then a UW student tweeted records of sexual assault accusations against Carter that resulted in his suspension. The victim said UW failed to protect other women by keeping Carter’s case under wraps for nearly a year.
- December 5, The Seattle Times and the UW Daily revealed that Carter was suspended from school after two allegations of sexual assault were upheld by UW’s Title IX adjudication.
- December 6, sources told ESPN that Carter’s pending agreement with the Melbourne club was off the table due to the sexual assault cases.
- December 8, Coach Hopkins’ weekly presser was pretty much: a) standard comments about taking sexual assault seriously, and that’s why Naz is no longer a Husky; b) he feels bad for the victims; and c) c’mon guys, we oughtta move forward and talk about why we’re really here, the next game…
To be clear, the details were a matter of public record: the allegations, the investigation, the findings, the appeal. But the UW, the Athletic Department, and Coach Hopkins said not a word about any of it when Carter announced he was leaving school. Which left local sports media to paint him – for 24 hours – as that high-flying dunker we’re gonna miss so much. And which – 24 hours later – left those same local media people spinning their wheels, backtracking, explaining that what Carter did was bad. Really bad.
In short, the story unfolded into mayhem quicker than a bungled fast break. Like, overthrow into the stands, diving attempted save into the kid in the wheelchair kinda mayhem.
So, a few questions. Rhetorical at best, I mean who reads this stuff. But here goes.
Why did Coach say he hoped Carter could come back? Hopkins knew the allegations had already been upheld. Why was this not – given the huge lip service the UWAD and most other colleges have paid to sex abuse prevention – automatic reason for dismissal from the team, and why didn’t Hopkins say so?
Why, when Hopkins kicked Carter off the team for sexual assault, would he release a statement saying Carter “informed me that he will be leaving to pursue a professional basketball career. I am in agreement that this step forward can provide an opportunity for Nahziah’s growth and development.” Does this not look horribly disingenuous now? Why not reveal the whole truth, Coach? Right there on the spot?
If not Coach Hopkins, then why didn’t Athletic Director Jen Cohen come clean the moment Carter announced he was leaving? The investigations, the findings, and the appeals were all complete and they were all public record. Was Cohen just hoping it wouldn’t all come out? Why not take control of the situation? Why let the media, and thank God for the media, but why did a sophisticated PR machine like Jen Cohen’s Husky Athletic Dept. let the media be the ones who found the facts and revealed everything? Why did it take heroic investigative reporters from The Seattle times and The UW Daily to out the story?
Why is Twitter all lit up with love for a man who got kicked off his team for sexual abuse? What is it about athletes that makes so many fans circle the wagons in cases like this?
How does the on-court performance of the Husky basketball team get thousands of fan comments and hundreds of column inches from pundits, when this story gets… tick tock tick tock… crickets? As fans, are we and our priorities that f’d up? Are we so far down this road that we care more about the loss of Naz Carter’s artistic dunks than we do about the injuries he inflicted on others? Are we more concerned with the team’s inability to play defense than we are with the shame this young man brought on himself and the UW basketball program?
Why are the rest of us locked down and told not to travel, when a sex abuser with mad hops is on the way to Australia for the NBA development league? Why would Australia let him in the country? Why is the NBA open to this?*
*OK, so he won’t be going to Australia. But still. WTF.
Doesn’t the lack of transparency raise valid questions about how our society handles sex abuse charges against a black man? Can we stop to consider how this might have played out if Carter was white? Chanel Miller was horrified by the same thought when she wrote Know My Name: that Brock Turner’s treatment as a white Stanford athlete/ frat boy was a hell of a lot different than a black or brown man could expect if he’d raped a woman on the ground behind a dumpster. Is UW even open to this discussion?
Where do the trolls come from – the ones who claim the victims are liars? What rotting stenchy hole did they crawl out from, to populate comment sections and Twitter threads, even directly insulting the accuser from behind their glowing screens? Why would a victim lie about an assault, when any woman who reads the news knows the bullshit she’s about to face from a legal system designed to violate her all over again?
Has our reliable, hardworking media really pressed the UW, pressed anyone from President Ana Marie Cauce down to Coach Hopkins, about the way they blundered into this? About the way it looks? Will anything change? Because here’s how it looks:
It looks like the UW and its AD pay lip service to fighting sexual abuse, but they’re willing to sit back and say a fond farewell to a sex abuser like he’s just a great guy off to the next chapter of his life. And if they haven’t learned anything from this debacle, then the next time this happens, they’ll be willing once again to hope the real story doesn’t come out, and leave it at that, and “move on,” as Coach Hop so eloquently put it.
Because, isn’t that what it looks like?