College Football Player Wears Confederate Flag Outfit, Gives Nazi Salute in Snapchat Photo (UPDATE)

How did this guy not think this was a bad idea?

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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UPDATE (9/12/15):

Tyler Owens has been suspended. Pace University President Steven J. Friedman called Owens' photo "highly offensive" in a statement and revealed that Owens has been suspended pending the outcome of an investigation into the photo.

See original story from 9/10/15 below.

When we look at the photo above, there's really only one question that comes to our minds: How did this guy not know that it was a terrible idea to take this picture?

The guy in the photo is Tyler Owens, and he's currently the captain of the Pace University football team. Recently, he put on a Confederate flagoutfit (where does one even get one of those?), gave the Nazi salute, and actually allowed someone to photograph him doing it. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, the photo ended up going up on Snapchat along with the caption, "The grand wizard," because, you know, if you're going to make one of the worst mistakes of your life, why not go all the way?!

Eventually, the Snapchat photo was sent to The Pace Chronicle by a group of Pace students who found it. The paper published it, and now Pace has launched an investigation into the photo. Meanwhile, one of Owens' former teammates Addison Casey has come to his friend's defense and said that the photo is nothing more than a "joke" that people are taking "out of context." Because...yeah. Within the right context, this would make sooooooo much more sense. :-/

College kids are known for doing dumb things. But this kind of goes above and beyond, even by dumb college kid standards. And it's difficult to imagine Pace not coming down hard on this kid sometime in the near future. Again, man: How did you not realize that this was a terrible idea?!

Send all complaints, compliments, and tips to sportstips@complex.com.

[via Deadspin]

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