Report: UNC women's basketball coach accused of making racially insensitive remarks

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is investigating women's basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell, after parents complained she made racially insensitive remarks and pressured team members to play even when they were seriously injured, several people with knowledge of the matter told The Washington Post.

The allegations were made last week during a meeting with university administrators, parents who attended the meeting told the Post. Multiple parents said their daughters shared that Hatchell told players they would get "hanged from trees with nooses" if they didn't step up their game, and also ordered them to do a "war chant" in honor of an assistant coach with Native American ancestry.

Several also said they were concerned that Hatchell and the team's physician, Dr. Harry Stafford, encouraged players to compete when they were hurt. They mentioned junior guard Emily Sullivan, who dislocated her shoulder during a game against Louisiana State University, the Post reports. She was told she didn't have a tear, and could get cortisone shots so she could keep playing. Although Sullivan's shoulder kept slipping out of its socket, Hatchell told her she shouldn't have surgery, the Post reports, which would have kept Sullivan from playing the next season.

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UNC announced Monday that Hatchell is on paid leave "due to issues raised by student-athletes and others." The university said it hired an outside law firm to run an investigation, but did not say what the probe was about. Hatchell's attorney, Wade Smith, told the Post the parents misconstrued her comments. "She said, 'They're going to take a rope and string us up, and hang us out to dry,'" he said. Smith also said Hatchell, who has coached at UNC since 1986, would never push a player to compete if she was not cleared by medical staff.