Sandy Brondello is a smart coach and a two time WNBA champion. She has been around basketball her whole life. She should have known better than to call Angel Reese a “protected species” on a hot mic during Friday’s game.
Now she is apologizing, which is the right move. But the words are already out there, and Angel Reese is not letting this one slide.
Here is what happened. The Toronto Tempo were playing the Atlanta Dream. Reese, one of the most watched players in the WNBA, drew a foul on Tempo forward Nyara Sabally. Sabally hit the floor and stayed down. Brondello, on the sideline, yelled at the officials, “She’s a protected species!”
Cameras caught it. Microphones caught it. The internet took over from there.
Reese responded Friday night with a clown emoji reply to a post that read “Calling a Black woman a species.” Her caption: “ARE WE SURPRISED?!” tagged directly at Brondello.
Brondello posted a full apology on Saturday. She admitted the phrase was wrong. She took responsibility. She specifically acknowledged that her words landed differently for Black women in the league.
“Angel, I’m sorry,” Brondello wrote. “Last night, in the emotion of the moment after Nyara’s injury, I used a phrase that I shouldn’t have used, and I take full responsibility for that.”
The apology reads as sincere. It also does not undo anything. Brondello is a coach in her first season with a new expansion franchise. She is trying to build a culture in Toronto. Getting into a public fight with the most talked about young star in the sport is not part of that plan.
Let’s give Reese her flowers here. She is 24 years old, a three time WNBA All Star, and one of the most polarizing figures in women’s basketball. She catches heat every night for how she plays, how she talks, and how she markets herself. When she called out Brondello immediately, some people rolled their eyes. They should not have. She was right.
The phrase Brondello used has a history. Calling a Black athlete a “species” in any context lands wrong. Whether Brondello meant it that way or not is beside the point. She said it, on a microphone, in a moment when officials were being told to stop protecting a Black player. The optics were terrible.
The Tempo will move on. The Dream will move on. Both teams have bigger things to worry about, including a hot playoff race in a WNBA season that has been more competitive than usual.
What lingers is the pattern. Reese has been publicly targeted more than most players her age. Some of it is fair criticism of her game. Some of it is not. She calls it out every time, and every time she gets accused of being too vocal. Then things like this happen, and she gets to say “I told you so.”
The WNBA has grown up fast in the last two seasons. Ratings are up. Attendance is up. New markets like Toronto are joining the league. That growth comes with more attention on every word said on a bench.
Brondello knows that now. She said the right things Saturday. She probably still keeps her job. But her first season as head coach of the Tempo will always have this footnote. That is the cost of a hot mic in 2026.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
