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The United States Naval Academy’s football team dropped the motto for its 2019 season, “Load the Clip,” on Friday amid concerns that it was insensitive to victims of gun violence, particularly those at The Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Md., where a man shot and killed five staff members last year.
In a statement, the Naval Academy’s superintendent, Vice Admiral Sean Buck, called the motto “inappropriate and insensitive to the community we call home.” The team’s stadium, Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, is located less than three miles from The Gazette newsroom.
“I take responsibility for, and apologize to, not only The Capital Gazette, but the entire Annapolis community,” he wrote.