PHILADELPHIA _ Sixers forward Mike Scott on Monday spoke publicly for the first time about his scuffle with Eagles fans while tailgating before the Birds' season-opener against his beloved Washington Redskins.
Scott, who threw a punch at a fan that morning, didn't disappoint.
"Looking back on it, I always play devil's advocate with myself, I definitely should have walked away before it got to that point," Scott said about the Sept. 8 incident. "You know I'm the professional. I got to be the bigger person and you walk away, but once you keep going. Once you keep going, I mean he was popping hella s _ . He was going off. Maybe it was the microphone.
"I walked up in there. Once you take it to the next level, throwing all the (racial) slurs out there, now I have to see if you match the energy," Scott said during 76ers media day. "That's what happened. I definitely got to be the bigger person."
According to one fan who witnessed the incident, Scott, a Virginia native, was being harassed by fans in the Lincoln Financial Field parking lot for wearing a Sean Taylor Redskins jersey. The fans did not recognize Scott, and a person speaking on a microphone crossed the line with racial slurs. Scott approached the tailgaters and the scene eventually turned into the melee caught on video.
