Kimari Robinson apologized after a viral sideline moment during Duke's 24-20 loss to the University of North Carolina, saying he was wrong to swat away a female staffer's arm while she was trying to help an injured teammate. The Duke football player said he was scared DaShawn Stone had been seriously hurt, but said that fear did not excuse what he did.
The scene unfolded midway through the third quarter, when Stone was on his back and the Blue Devils' medical staff was checking on him. A female staffer moved in to try to get Robinson out of the way so she could reach Stone, and Robinson knocked her arm away before standing over his teammate until Manny Diaz and Jonathan Patke came onto the field. The clip spread quickly online, and it is the kind of image that can travel faster than the game itself.
Robinson did not try to blur what happened. He said, 'I was completely wrong, and she did not deserve that,' and added that he had apologized to the staffer. He said, 'Being worried about him does not excuse how I treated her,' and, 'I should have controlled my emotions, and I didn't.' He also said, 'I'm truly sorry for my actions and for letting her, myself and our program down,' and, 'I have to be better than that.' The apology matters because this was not a private mistake made in the heat of the moment and left there; it became public almost immediately, after Kevin Kelley shared the video and Robert Griffin III posted it on his X page. Griffin called it 'no excuses for it' and said, 'As a man, this just can't happen.'
That leaves Duke with the part Robinson cannot answer on his own. WRAL News reached out to Duke Athletics about whether the program would take any action, and as of Sunday night there was no response. Diaz was expected to have his media availability on Monday, which will be the first chance for the program to address whether it treats the incident as a matter for discipline, a warning or nothing beyond Robinson's apology. For now, the clearest fact is the one Robinson put on the record himself: he said he was worried about Stone, but he still crossed a line with the person trying to help him.
