AP Photo/Chase Seabolt
California men’s basketball head coach Mark Madsen said in a statement on Wednesday night that player Fardaws Aimaq was “allegedly subjected to abhorrent and offensive comments from a fan” and was called “a terrorist” during the team’s 75-72 loss against UTEP.
Madsen added he asked for an investigation into the situation and that he was “disturbed Fardaws was allegedly on the receiving end of such language, and I’m disappointed that he confronted this fan in the stands.”
Cal Basketball @CalMBBall
Video showed Aimaq going into the stands to approach a fan following the game and saying, “You want to talk some s–t? I’ll slap the f–k out of you, b—h,” via Alex Simon of SF Gate.
Rob Dauster @RobDauster
This is Cal’s Fardaws Aimaq reacting to what his agent @DanielPoneman says was racist comments coming from the fan. Fardaws is Afghan by way of Vancouver. The fan (allegedly) called him a terrorist and told him to leave the country.
pic.twitter.com/Wk690Tkdnt
Aimaq’s agent, Daniel Poneman, called him a “gentle, kindhearted person” and noted that when the Cal big man left Texas Tech as a transfer, “his DMs filled with horrible, unimaginable things from fans, and he didn’t react. This fan hurled racist insults all game, called him a terrorist and told him to leave the country. I would never encourage a player to confront a fan in the stands. But on a human level, this fan’s behavior is far worse than the reaction.”
He added that Aimaq “is the sweetest guy in the world, never heard of him throwing a punch or harming a fly. But now people are making him out to be a thug because he finally spoke up, after years of this kind of abuse. The reactions always go viral, but the cause never gets addressed.”
The incident took place during Monday’s SoCal Challenge tournament at the campus of Junipero Serra High School in San Juan Capistrano, California. Aimaq had an 18-point, 11-rebound double-double in the loss, though he also fouled out of the game.
Aimaq’s family was originally from Afghanistan but both of his parents fled the country during the war with the Soviet Union in the 1980s. They settled in Vancouver, where Aimaq was born and raised.
He previously spent one season at Mercer, two seasons at Utah Valley—where he was the Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year in 2020-21 and was a two-time conference Defensive Player of the Year under Madsen—and a season at Texas Tech before transferring to Cal this season and rejoining Madsen.
