It’s nasty to step outside and find racist graffiti in front of your house. When Louis Orr, basketball coach at Bowling Green State University, went out on a Sunday morning and saw the words “WHITE POWER” and a swastika on the sidewalk in front of his home, he called the police. The incident at the home of the popular coach (once famously half of Syracuse University’s “Bouie and Louie Show”) was widely reported. Some disquieted commenters said Orr would need to “be extra careful around his property… for the near-future.”

Freddie and Frieda Falcon. I guess they swoop.

The Bowling Green (Ohio) police caught four teenagers. They had gone chalking, a pastime described by a county prosecutor as “where you take chalk and write inappropriate words on a person’s driveway and sidewalk.” Two boys, 16, and 17, were charged in juvenile court with criminal mischief and ethnic intimidation.

“SMH, sounds like this is not a great neighborhood for African-Americans! We’re glad these kids got caught, hopefully they get that good a$$ whupping that should be coming to them!” said Bossip.

But Orr told the Toledo Blade that Bowling Green is a good place to live. “The community has reached out to me since all this has happened and offered kindness and support, and anger. No one has to really apologize for the actions of whoever [did this]. I know people here are genuine, and there’s no anger towards anyone here in Bowling Green.”

He called the graffiti “an issue of the heart,” and when the Blade asked what he meant by that, said (in part): “The heart is the seat of our emotions, and the Bible describes a man’s heart as ‘desperately wicked.’ I just think that when you deal with issues of race, they are deep-rooted issues. And God has to transform that heart, you have to see things in a different way”

He asked the prosecutor if he could meet with the boys, and that was arranged.

“They apologized. I accepted their apology,” said Orr. “God has forgiven me for my transgressions, and I believe young folks, they don’t always know the consequences of their actions or the power of words… I just hope from this point on they learn from it, and lead productive lives, and lives where they treat everyone with respect and love.”

Yup. They had to talk to the coach. I’m pretty sure the coach talked to them about God. (Also, the coach is 6’8”.) I’ll bet they felt lower than a mole-rat’s navel. As they should.

On the criminal mischief charge, they were sentenced to community service and ordered to write a formal letter of apology to the Orr family. But based on Orr’s conversation, the ethnic intimidation charges were deferred for five months. If they behave themselves, the charges will be dropped.

Distressed neighbors offered apologies that Orr thought they didn’t owe. The teenagers who did owe apologies did a good enough job that Orr accepted their apologies and recommended (provisional) lenience.

As for Orr’s hope that the kids learn from this to treat everyone with respect and love, I think it might happen that way. It sounds like they had a good talk with the coach. But they won’t want to apologize to him again.