Famed North Carolina State announcer Gary Hahn was suspended over a comment he made about the Sun Bowl on Friday.
Hahn was calling the Duke’s Mayo Bowl at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C. between NC State and Maryland. During the game, he provided an update on the Sun Bowl in El Paso between UCLA and Pitt.
Hahn decided to throw in a mention of the illegal aliens in El Paso while sharing the score of the game.
WRAL’s Keenan Willard shared the audio clip of Hahn’s remark.
AUDIO: Here’s the clip that got NC State play-by-play announcer Gary Hahn suspended indefinitely.
“Amongst all the illegal aliens in El Paso,” he says before listing the score of the Sun Bowl.@WRAL pic.twitter.com/51Wh0sh4E2
— Keenan Willard (@KeenanWRAL) December 30, 2022
“One other bowl game involving an ACC team going on. That’s the Sun Bowl and amongst all the illegal aliens down in El Paso, it’s UCLA 14 and Pittsburgh 6. That’s with 11:15 to go in the second quarter,” Hahn said.
During December, Border Patrol in El Paso reported 2,300 migrant encounters per day.
Hahn’s comment may be factually accurate, but talking about the border and illegal aliens is a sensitive political subject, and really had no place in a sports broadcast about the Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte.
Willard shared a followup statement saying that Learfield has suspended Hahn.
“Learfield has suspended Wolfpack Sports Network Play-by-Play announcer Gary Hahn indefinitely following comments made during today’s Duke Mayo Bowl radio broadcast,” the statement said.
Hahn has been the radio voice of NC State football and basketball on the Wolfpack Sports Network since the 1990-91 season.
