Except that is not what happened.
Patterson did not confront Dylan in front of his teammates. Patterson said the word when addressing the team the next day to clarify what was said during his meeting with Dylan because Dylan was telling people something different. During that clarification coach simply told the team what was said verbatim. Should he have? Probably not, but in that instance context does matter. The fact that Dylan acted like he didn't know what Coach was talking about until Patterson had to tell him the word that he was told Dylan was using in the locker room underscores how immature this young man is. Then he has the gall to use a private meeting as a social media attack (tagged it #BLM) on coach. I'm sorry, but Dylan is the villain, while Patterson made a mistake.
Then that is probably even worse, as Steel was giving him the benefit of heat-of-the-moment. Given the ability to coolly think about what he was going to say in front of a group of young black employees, this is a major blunder. So dumb.
Literally, Tx1999, you and I are pretty good buds and I would not say that word out loud to you while we are sitting in a restaurant. The idea of saying it to a room full of black young men, are you kidding me? He had MANY alternatives to express what was said without using the word. It is a hurtful word, regardless of context. Not sure why that's so hard to understand.
Not being critical of Gary--he made a mistake as we all do and he publicly apologized for it. He did the right thing there. But the way you all try to minimize it, when Gary himself recognizes the wrongness. Y'all are morons.