And I’m in good company, especially if we’re going back to 2013 when the Scalley incident occurred.

Here’s an article from 2014 about the prevalence of that word in sports:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2014/11/09/the-n-word-an-entrenched-racial-slur-now-more-prevalent-than-ever/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

And here’s an article showing that the word has grown more taboo over time (accelerating rapidly in the 90s).