{"id":732834,"date":"2026-02-06T07:01:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T07:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/732834\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T07:01:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T07:01:15","slug":"hawaii-nfl-star-apologizes-for-racial-slur-wins-rookie-of-the-year-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/732834\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii NFL star apologizes for racial slur, wins Rookie of the Year award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; An NFL star from Hawaii apologized Thursday for using a racial slur hours ahead of being named the Associated Press NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Carolina Panthers wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, a Waimanalo native, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/story\/_\/id\/47842973\/panthers-tetairoa-mcmillan-apologizes-using-racial-slur\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/story\/_\/id\/47842973\/panthers-tetairoa-mcmillan-apologizes-using-racial-slur\">said a racial slur twice during a livestream while playing a football video game<\/a> at a charity esports tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">In a post on his Instagram story Thursday, McMillan said, \u201cI used a term I should not have. There\u2019s no excuse for what I said. I sincerely apologize for speaking thoughtlessly and will do better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"In a post on his Instagram story Thursday, McMillan said, \u201cI used a term I should not have....\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6TSZOO7T5VCIDGEAK3GSYIGGCE.PNG\" width=\"980\" height=\"1743\" \/>In a post on his Instagram story Thursday, McMillan said, \u201cI used a term I should not have. There\u2019s no excuse for what I said. I sincerely apologize for speaking thoughtlessly and will do better.\u201d(Tetairoa McMillan, Instagram)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Hours later, the 22-year-old was named Offensive Rookie of the Year <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaiinewsnow.com\/2026\/02\/06\/mike-vrabel-is-ap-nfl-coach-year-mvp-remains-be-announced\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.hawaiinewsnow.com\/2026\/02\/06\/mike-vrabel-is-ap-nfl-coach-year-mvp-remains-be-announced\/\">during Thursday evening\u2019s NFL Honors<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cFirst off, I wanna thank my mom for always being there for me. She\u2019s a real soldier,\u201d he said in his acceptance speech. \u201cI wanna thank my family for just teaching me the importance of, you know, humility, respect, and for always just supporting me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">During the 2025-2026 season, McMillan had 70 receptions for 1,014 yards, the most receiving yards of any rookie in the league.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">McMillan was the eighth-overall selection in the 2025 draft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI hope that I can inspire future generations to chase their dreams. Thank you. God bless,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; An NFL star from Hawaii apologized Thursday for using a racial slur hours ahead of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2075],"tags":[105912,235,260,2567,7,6,236,1453],"class_list":{"0":"post-732834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-panthers","8":"tag-ap-nfl-offensive-rookie-of-the-year","9":"tag-carolina","10":"tag-carolina-panthers","11":"tag-carolinapanthers","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-panthers","15":"tag-tetairoa-mcmillan"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116022404131867210","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}