This story was updated to add new information.
New Mexico State football offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Tyler Wright’s social media contains more than 150 social media posts containing derogatory language about Africans and African Americans, Hispanics, women and the LGBTQ+ community from more than 10 years ago when he was a student and football player at Tarleton State.
Minutes after the Las Cruces Sun-News, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK, reported on Wright’s social media account history late Friday evening, NMSU athletics director Mario Moccia informed the Sun-News that Wright will ‘no longer be with the team’ as the school reviews the matter.
A survey of Wright’s account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, uncovered several potentially insensitive posts, including that Ugandan warlord and accused war criminal Joseph Kony ‘should be a college coach’ because ‘he got thousands of black kids to do what he said.’ Wright also posted that he would ‘beat’ a roommate if he was an LGBTQ+ individual and used a slur commonly used in reference to Black people when announcing he was leaving for a vacation in Jamaica.
Wright did not respond to repeated requests for comment from the Las Cruces Sun-News on Friday night. Moccia told the Sun-News he was ‘not aware of anything’ regarding Wright’s posts, then later informed the Sun-News that Wright will not be with the team as the matter is investigated. Head coach Tony Sanchez also declined to comment, as did a university athletics department communications spokesman.
The school is aware of the posts and looking into the matter, a New Mexico State University spokesman indicated to the Sun-News.
The posts range from 2011-14, when Wright was a wide receiver at Tarleton State in Stephenville, Texas. He later became a football intern at the school in 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile and his biography on the New Mexico State athletics website. Wright played at Tarleton for four seasons, helping the then-Division II school become co-Lone Star Conference champions in 2013 with 432 receiving yards.
The account, currently using the handle @CoachWrightNMSU, was created in July 2010 when Wright was a student at Granbury High School in Granbury, Texas. The account bio includes his current position with the Aggies as well as the school’s imagery, logos and the hashtag #AggiesUp under an image of him in school apparel holding a football. The account matches up with the timeline of his coaching career with posts from his tenures at Permian High School from 2015-18, UT-Permian Basin from 2018-19, TCU from 2019-21 and New Mexico State from 2021-present.
Wright’s posts include nearly 100 remarks on LGBTQ+ individuals including homophobic slurs, more than 60 references to Ugandan warlord Kony – many of which include racial remarks about Africans and African Americans – at least a dozen posts degrading women, nine posts stereotyping and demeaning Hispanics and Latinos and five uses of racial slurs for Black people.
Posts that could be considered racist, sexist or homophobic ceased around the time Wright began his coaching career as a wide receivers coach at Permian High School in Odessa, Texas, in the fall of 2015.
Though Wright’s last personal post was on July 31, he has shared more than 150 posts from other accounts since then as of Friday evening.
Wright is in his third season with the Aggies and his first as offensive coordinator. He’s coaching an offense that ranks second-to-last in yards per game and seventh-to-last in points per game amongst FBS teams this season.
Former New Mexico State coach Jerry Kill hired Wright as tight ends coach and special teams coordinator in 2022 after the two worked together at TCU from 2020-21. Wright was promoted to his current position in January 2024 after new Aggies coach Sanchez succeeded Kill.
Wright’s annual salary increased from $70,000 to $200,000 on Feb. 1. His contract, which also contains clauses for bonuses of up to $85,000 per year, runs through June 2026 and contains language that he can be fired for cause for ‘commission of, or participation in any act, situation or occurrence’ that the school judges to bring Wright into ‘public disrepute, scandal or ridicule’ or engages in personal conduct that offends ‘prevailing social mores and values,’ including conduct that reflects ‘unfavorably on NMSU’s reputation.’
Wright’s contract, provided to the USA TODAY Sports Network on May 31, had not been signed by the coach. The document includes a trace of all parties receiving and signing the contract which does not include Wright. The final notation in the trace says the contract was completed March 12.
Wright has been recognized as a rising star in his profession, being named to the 2024 American Football Coaches Association’s 35 under 35 Coaches Leadership Institute, which is ‘aimed at identifying and developing premier, future leaders in the football coaching profession’ according to the AFCA website.
The school website carries this statement as NMSU’s Commitment to Equity, Inclusion and Diversity: ‘New Mexico State University is a proud and dedicated land-grant, space-grant, Hispanic Serving and Minority Serving Institution, located in the borderlands and Tribal lands regions. With priorities centering equity and inclusion, NMSU is committed to practices that leverage the insight emerging from the intersectional diversity of our students, staff, faculty, and communities that we serve and support, through outreach and Extension, research, and teaching.’
The Aggies (1-3) play New Mexico (0-4) at home Saturday at 8 p.m. ET.
Posts concerning Joseph Kony, Africans and African Americans
Wright posted more than 60 times from 2012-14 about Kony. The vast majority of these posts were made in a two-day timespan from March 7-8, 2012, the same week the ‘Kony 2012’ documentary was released.
Kony founded the Lord’s Resistance Army in 1987, which is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations and the U.S. State Department. He has been accused by multiple governments of abducting children to be child soldiers and sex slaves, and his forces reportedly displaced 2 million people from 1986-2009 according to the U.N.
Wright posted remarks detailing Kony’s killings and child abductions, with the posts ranging from insensitive remarks or humor about Kony’s war crimes to racial stereotyping.
Wright also referred to Kony as the ‘most influential person of the last 20 years’ and ‘mr. population control’ (sic). Wright also called him the ‘principle’ (sic) because ‘Black kids see him often.’
He also appears to have celebrated Kony’s killings and the war crimes for which Kony was indicted by the International Criminal Court, writing he’s ‘knockin Africans down like bowling pins’ (sic).
In another post, Wright said the flurry of Kony posts was because he was ‘trying to tweet one time for every kony kid’ (sic).
Wright made two posts in 2020 during protests surrounding the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer that appear to show a change. He posted on May 26 of that year, ‘Humans are humans regardless of skin color or background and deserve to be treated as such. We must do better, support each other’s goals and love one another.’ He posted a black square on June 2 for Blackout Tuesday, a collective social media action to protest racism and police brutality.
Posts concerning Hispanics
Wright has posted several derogatory remarks about Hispanics and Latinos, even referring to himself as the ‘Whitest Mexican (sic)’ in a May 2012 post.
Wright engaged in racial stereotyping with two posts in December 2011, demeaning Hispanics with an expletive for having to teach them English and describing them allegedly watching pornographic videos during lunch breaks as ‘classic.’ Wright referred to the individuals as Mexican in the posts.
He made a racial remark about Hispanics in an April 2012 post, writing ‘Oiled up and dark! lookin like a Mexican’ (sic). Wright called a group of Mexican people a ‘Comanche town hall meeting’ in a December 2013 post.
Hispanics and Latinos constitute a majority in Las Cruces, with 60.33% of the city’s population identifying as such according to the 2020 United States census.
Posts using homophobic slurs and demeaning LGBTQ+ individuals
Wright used homophobic slurs in several posts, including one of the most common slurs in its regular and shortened form.
He either posted or reposted the shorthand version of the slur six times from 2011-13. He called his friends the longer version in a November 2012 post about the ‘Madden NFL’ video game.
Wright used the word ‘gay’ 73 times from when he entered college in the fall of 2011 to 2014 to describe friends, commercials, websites, clothing items and musicians including country music band Rascal Flatts. He called the latter the ‘epitome of gay’ in a May 2012 post.
Wright also posted or reposted another four-letter homophobic slur eight times from 2012-13, with a majority of the posts using the term appearing to describe friends.
He made a transphobic remark about transgender women in a March 2012 post, commenting on their body parts.
Posts concerning women
Wright’s posts have included language that demeans and perpetuates stereotypes about women.
In March 2012, he posted that women who ‘can’t make a sandwich’ should become better at sex instead. He also shared a post by another person from July 2012 that called women’s sports a ‘joke.’ In an October 2012 post, he remarked that he would dress as laundry for Halloween because ‘women love laundry.’
In September 2013, he described women that are ‘passed around’ as ‘contagious’ in a post. In August 2013, he posted that those who have a ‘naked girl silhouette sticker’ on their car are ‘dubs,’ referring to wins.
Use of other insensitive words
Wright has used and reposted a common slur for Black people. He reposted a post from someone whose X account has since been deactivated, referring to Wright as the word and used it himself in a post announcing his vacation to Jamaica in 2013.
He also used the word ‘ghetto’ in reference to girls at La Vega High School in Bellmead, Texas, a city where Black people are the second-largest ethnic group at 18.8%, according to the 2020 United States census.
Wright also used a common slur in reference to people with learning disabilities in a May 2013 post to talk about a girlfriend he appeared to have at the time.
