An incoming freshman and Cornell football recruit who was caught on video using a racial slur will never have a chance to be part of the team after he lost his spot due to his behavior.
Nate Panza, a running back from Morristown, New Jersey, could be heard clearly saying the n-word in a Snapchat video recorded over the weekend.
The video, which was filmed by Panza’s high school classmate and incoming University of Richmond student Adam Giaquinto, shows Panza saying the racial slur off camera.
The camera then pans to Panza, who says, “Oh wait, you can’t put that one up. You can’t post that. Adam, you can’t post that.”
“Please save it, though,” Panza continues.
Giaquinto then says the N-word himself, while also invoking the name of George Floyd, who was killed by police.
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“Now that’s fucked up,” Panza says in response to Giaquinto’s Floyd reference. “Okay, you can’t say that.”
Panza has been kicked off the Cornell University football team as a result, according to the Cornell Daily Sun.
“A video was taken of me using a word that is offensive and hurtful,” Panza wrote in a statement to The Sun on Monday night. “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,” he continued. “My immediate reaction to the video was to reach out to my entire high school community to offer my sincerest apologies.”
