New Mexico State football coach Tyler Wright is under investigation for a slew of old tweets that are racist, sexist and homophobic in nature. The tweets were first reported by the Las Cruces Sun-News.
Many of the tweets were published over a decade ago, when Wright was a member of the Tarleton State University football team, where he played wide receiver.
The worst of the tweets may have been this one, saying he and his friends would beat up their new roommate if he were gay.
Get off the sidelines and into the game
Our weekly newsletter is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
Related
300 current NFL players posted 2,000 homophobic tweets a decade ago. Most are still online.
A young gay sports fan searched X feeds of NFL players and found 2,000 tweets with homophobic language still active.
By Jim Buzinski | September 21, 2023
So far the school has reportedly kept Wright away from the football team — including a loss last weekend to New Mexico — but otherwise stayed silent.
At the time, Wright was a freshman at Tarleton State University. With other problematic tweets we’ve seen from football players, they’ve often been from tweens or young teens in high school.
Wright must have been 18 or 19 at the time, certainly old enough — even over a decade ago — to know you don’t beat up men because they’re gay, and you certainly don’t tell the world you intend to do it.
It wasn’t just dropping the F-bomb. This was more.
Wright grew up in the town of Granbury, Texas, a little over an hour west of Dallas, during a time when fights over same-sex marriage had heated up in the public discourse.
Even if he should have known better about that tweet celebrating the potential beating of a gay man, others were more of the typical dropping of an anti-gay slur.
As of publishing, the tweets were still live and active on X.
Outsports has been consistent over the years to show some grace to people who get “caught” with some ugly, old tweets. Should people really lost their livelihood for something they shared on social media over a decade ago?
We may be outliers in the LGBTQ community, but we rarely advocate for people losing their jobs due to something they said even yesterday.
However.
This is dependent on the person taking some proper steps now. Wright should acknowledge what he said. He should address the LGBTQ community directly. And he should explain how he feels today and anything he’s doing to make amends.
When ugly language like this arises, no matter how old it is, the person needs to explain it.
And yeah, if coach Wright won’t do those things, then he’s leaving his career in the balance.
Subscribe to the Outsports newsletter to keep up with your favorite out athletes, inspiring LGBTQ sports stories, and more.
