Florida State recruiting apologizes for picture of Martin Luther King Jr. wearing an FSU Nike glove
The recruiting department at Florida State had the right idea of paying tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday. It did not execute that idea well at all.
The school’s football recruiting department tweeted and subsequently deleted an ill-advised picture of King within a graphic containing the team’s slogan “do something.” The photo of King included him with his right arm outstretched with a Nike receiving glove in Florida State colors edited onto his hand.
That previous sentence is not a lie. They really did put a receiving glove on Martin Luther King Jr. It also looks like he could be doing the tomahawk chop thanks to the way the receiving glove is edited onto his hand.
It was a bad graphic.
As you can imagine, the tweet was excoriated before it got deleted. Here’s a sampling.
@FSU_Recruiting, what on Earth made you think that image was a good idea??? You deserve every bit of bad publicity and condemnation you get. As an alumnus this is, again, flat-out embarrassing. @FSUFootball @CoachTaggart
— @aNOLEnymous (@aNOLEnymous) January 21, 2019
@FSU_Recruiting good job at making us a laughing stock.
— Manny (@MannyM83) January 21, 2019
@FSU_Recruiting why’d you delete this? Didn’t you know the internet is forever? pic.twitter.com/RHOX2lFJ6f
— Phoenecian Thanker Esq. (@ChrisTweetLLC) January 21, 2019
Florida State issued an apology Monday afternoon.
— Seminoles Recruiting (@FSU_Recruiting) January 21, 2019
“In a well-intentioned effort to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. on this special day, a member of our recruiting staff created a graphic using one of Dr. King’s quotes “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” The quote resonated with our program’s Do Something mantra. However, in our attempt to more closely connect the message to FSU, we foolishly posted a graphic that was not in line with our intent. We are sorry for missing the mark in our attempt to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy.”
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
Follow @NickBromberg on Twitter
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