USC alum and NFL owner regrets apologizing for 'inmates' comment, clarifies

Houston Texans owner Bob McNair, a South Carolina alum who has donated millions of dollars to the Gamecock football program, is no stranger to controversy — he's been accused of making racially insensitive remarks and threatening not to sign players who protest during the national anthem, and he has publicly supported President Donald Trump and defended controversial Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson.

Now, he appears to be walking back an apology he made on one of those topics.

In October, ESPN reported that in a meeting between NFL owners and players concerning national anthem protests, McNair allegedly said, “we can’t have the inmates running the prison."

When the comment was reported, several Texans players walked out of the team's practice facility, and wide receiver and Clemson alum DeAndre Hopkins refused to return for the rest of the day. McNair issued an apology soon after.

"I regret that I used that expression,” McNair said, per ESPN. “I never meant to offend anyone and I was not referring to our players. I used a figure of speech that was never intended to be taken literally. I would never characterize our players or our league that way and I apologize to anyone who was offended by it.”

And that seemed to be that. Until Thursday, when McNair told the Wall Street Journal in an interview that the only thing he regrets about the controversy is that he apologized at all.

"I really didn’t have anything to apologize for," McNair said, claiming that his comment was directed at league executives, not players.

"In business, it's a common expression. But the general public doesn't understand it, perhaps," he added.

In the same interview, McNair said politics and the NFL shouldn't mix.

"As employers, we set conditions for all of our employees," McNair said. "We don't allow political meetings or statements or that sort of thing during working hours. You wouldn't let somebody working at McDonald's, when somebody pulls through, give them a hamburger and say, 'I don't know why you're eating that beef, why aren't you a vegetarian?' You don't allow that. Well, that's freedom of expression."

McNair also decried the NFL's revenue-sharing system, in which teams split league revenues, comparing it to socialism.

This story was originally published April 5, 2018 at 3:06 PM with the headline "USC alum and NFL owner regrets apologizing for 'inmates' comment, clarifies."