Winston-Salem State University is changing how it prepares the field after the markings at its last home game drew a viral backlash, and athletic director Eric Burns said late Tuesday that he is taking responsibility for the mistake. Burns said the field markings fell short of WSSU athletics' standards and that the program has secured extra field preparation support and new checks before the next home game.
The apology landed after a TikTok showing jagged hash marks at Bowman Gray Stadium spread quickly earlier in the week, drawing more than 2 million views in just one day. The video showed an unidentified person painting the hash marks along the sidelines, a detail that turned a routine pregame job into a public embarrassment for a program that plays football at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Burns said the issue was not just cosmetic. “Our student-athletes and Ram Nation deserve the highest standard, and we are committed to meeting it every time,” he said, pairing the apology with a promise that the school has already added support and put new checks in place. The next home game now becomes the real test: whether the changes are enough to keep a field-marking error from happening again.
The criticism landed because the markings were hard to miss. Bowman Gray Stadium’s field sits inside a quarter-mile track used for stock car racing, and the complaint centered on the appearance of the hash marks along the sidelines, which stood out even as the game still went on a few hours later. That is what made the clip travel so fast and why the response had to come quickly.
The bigger question now is not whether the apology was public enough. It is whether the added support and new checks can close the gap in the preparation process before the Rams return to the field. Winston-Salem State said it has moved to fix the problem before that next home game, and Burns has tied the matter directly to the standard the program says it intends to meet every time.
