During the basketball March Madness tournament a journalist targeted the LSU Women’s Basketball team. Players, coaches, and fans considered this article racist and sexist.
The article was written by Los Angeles Times columnist Ben Bolch. He wrote a story on predicting the NCAA Women’s Basketball matchup between LSU and UCLA.
Bolch, an UCLA beat writer, has been with the L.A. Times since 1999 and wrote a book in 2018 titled “100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.”
He referred to UCLA as “America’s sweetheart” and compared them to “milk and cookies.” In contrast, Bolch described LSU as “dirty debutantes” — a derogatory southern term — and compared them to “basketball villains.”
“I had to look up what that term meant and what I found was disturbing,” said second-year Delta student Teaghan Gallego, who is majoring in business management, “I feel the writer should be punished, that language doesn’t belong in our country, especially women’s basketball which is gaining popularity.”
Gallego refers to the rise of female basketball players like LSU player Angel Reese and Iowa superstar Catelin Clark.
Bolch received criticism from coaches, players, and readers for using racist language to talk about the game.
LSU head coach Kim Mulkey, who used to play herself, defended her athletes and ripped Bolch on how he depicted her players.
Even controversial sports journalist Skip Bayless, who used to be an employee for the L.A. Times, “was ashamed” of the Times for publishing that article.
“How can that get through in today’s L. A. Times, this wasn’t a columnist writing this; this was a beat writer,” Bayless said on his show “FS1 Undisputed.”
Former Delta student James Luino agrees with Bayless’s analysis
“He shouldn’t have been allowed to even write that article because of his obvious bias,” Luino said “I heard even the UCLA coach has denounced the article and I feel instead of editing it they should’ve just pulled it off the L.A. Times in general.”
The Los Angeles Times removed the offensive language and when you open the article now it says “The original version of this commentary did not meet our editorial standards.”
Bolch apologized on X, saying “Words matter, as a journalist no one should know more than me. Yet I failed miserably in my choice of words. I’m sorry.