Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is defending his statements that the LSU women's basketball team should have been present during the National Anthem before their quarter-final game vs. Iowa earlier this month.
Landry said his comments that student-athletes be present for the anthem or "risk their athletic scholarships" was misconstrued.
"At no time was the intent to suggest that coach Kim Mulkey or LSU’s players were less than patriotic because they weren’t on the court while the national anthem was played," Landry Landry wrote in an op-ed in The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate. "In fact, I called on the NCAA to look into standardizing the event management within college sports because what happened was unfair to Mulkey and the LSU women’s basketball team."
The team was in the locker room preparing for the game.
Landry said if an LSU team is not present for the anthem, it could be mistaken by others as some kind of political statement.
Landry's op-ed did not address the issue of threatening to revoke scholarships for student athletes who are not in view of the public during the playing of the national anthem.
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