Florida State-Miami incident shows racial, gay slurs are still alive and well in sports. They just got a fan fired.

University of Miami linebacker Damon Wilson II and the Hurricanes were celebrating a wild overtime win against rival Florida State on Saturday. But one Florida State fan tried to ruin Wilson’s day with a series of racial and homophobic messages.

In a post on X, Wilson wrote, “Glimpse into the life of a Black student athlete,” followed by a series of vile messages he said he received from the account of Kade McLendon, who news reports say is a Florida State graduate.

Among the messages that Wilson received were these: “I hope you get r*ped you little fa**ot. … Stupid n-word … cotton-picking n-word … you’re a fa**ot b*tch who can’t play ball.”

There has been no explanation for why McLendon targeted Wilson with his texts. On Wednesday, the Florida Bar said it fired McLendon, issuing this message:

“The Florida Bar has concluded its internal investigation into the direct messages sent from Kade McLendon’s Instagram account to Damon Wilson. Those messages were reprehensible and inconsistent with the mission, values, and policies of The Florida Bar. While McClendon denies sending the messages, he did not provide evidence sufficient to demonstrate to The Florida Bar’s satisfaction that his Instagram account had been compromised. As of today, The Florida Bar has terminated McLendon’s employment.”

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The scourge of homophobia

Wilson’s experience points to the perils that Black athletes face on social media from racism. The second part, the homophobia, has been something Outsports has been covering since we first started publishing in 1999.

We have long documented numerous incidents of gay slurs being uttered by athletes, fans and even referees. Using a gay slur comes naturally to many men (especially young men) since it is perceived as the worst insult you can give to another man.

No event, no matter how big, is immune, as we saw this summer with Mexican fans chanting a gay slur at World Cup games, a “tradition” that shows no sign of slowing down despite penalties and widespread condemnation.

In the English Premier League, figures show homophobic abuse from fans reported at 49 matches in 2024-25, and incidents rose in the 2025-26 season, with slurs being heard at 15% of the games.

We also know that education works and these slurs, at least in the U.S., seem to lessen as we move from high school to college to pros. They also dramatically decrease once a team has an out athlete, a trend documented in numerous coming out stories on Outsports.

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