Hawaii Coach Apologizes For Accusing Notre Dame Of Gayness During Dance Routine

Before last year's Hawaii Bowl, Notre Dame and Hawaii met for a pre-game banquet in which the Rainbows-turned-Warriors did the ha'a and the Fighting Irish performed a cheer, which Hawaii head coach Greg McMackin tastefully deemed "a little faggot dance."

But McMackin quickly realized he had made an oopsie, so he preemptively declared that he was misquoted in stories that had not yet been written with a quote that was in no way taken out of context. By doing so, he repeated the slur twice more. He asked the dozen-or-so beat reporters in the room to cover for him; if they didn't, he said he would just deny it. The digital recorders were running the whole time.

Soon after, McMackin returned to the podium and tried again to make things all better.

"I want to officially, officially apologize," he said. "Please don't write that statement I said as far as Notre Dame. The reason is, I don't care about Notre Dame. But I'm not a — I don't want to come out and have every homosexual ticked off at me. You know what I mean. Because I don't have any problem with homosexuals. But I apologize for saying that and I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't run that word. If you said dance, that's OK. But don't use the bad term that I chose, please. Thank you."

Of course, in coming back to the mic, McMackin all but assured himself of the blanket coverage he dreaded. Some good apologizing does — it forced him to repent again.

"I would sincerely like to apologize for the inappropriate verbage, words that I used," he said. "… I'm really ticked off at myself for saying that. I don't have any prejudices and it really makes me mad that I even said that and I'm disappointed in myself. … What I was trying to do was be funny and it's not funny and even more it isn't funny to me. I was trying to make a joke and it was a bad choice of words and I really - I really, really - feel bad about it and I wanted to apologize. I'm going to apologize to my team. I'm going to apologize to the people in Hawaii."

On another note, after he slipped up for the first time, McMackin went on to describe the best ha'a he had ever seen: "They're on their chairs. They had beads on, they're ripping the beads off. It was a little scary." Sounds... actually, let's not go there. Don't want to be misquoted.

Hawaii coach uses gay slur at media event [Idaho Press-Tribune] Idaho coach uses gay slur in reference to Notre Dame [Idaho Statesman] McMackin slip creates controversy [Star Bulletin] Warriors coach apologizes [Honolulu Advertiser]