The school superintendent and head softball coach from Mount Pleasant have issued written apologies after the words ”Dirty Dodge” were spotted on their team vehicle during this week’s Iowa High School Girls State Softball Tournament.

The phrase on ”On to state, #DirtyDodge” was written on the windows of a school district van.

That offended many Fort Dodge residents and sparked a flurry of comments on social media.

Mayor Matt Bemrich said he would tell the person who wrote that on the van, ”You don’t know Fort Dodge and if you knew Fort Dodge that would offend you.”

”We work very hard to put on a great event every year for girls state,” Bemrich said.

He said Fort Dodge is a ”great venue for an important sporting event in our state.”

In an apology sent to Bemrich and each member of the City Council, John Henriksen, the superintendent of the Mount Pleasant Community School District, wrote that the phrase was removed from the van as soon as he found out about it.

”We contacted the coaches as soon as we found out, and the windows were cleaned immediately,” he wrote. ”We have responded to each email concern and phone call.”

”My sincere apology from our school district to you and (the) city of Fort Dodge,” he added.

Head softball coach Troy Mears also sent a written apology.

”On behalf of our softball team and our school district, I would like to apologize to you if you were offended or upset with the writing on our van,” Mears wrote. ”I assure you it was, by no means, meant to show any disrespect whatsoever to the fine city of Fort Dodge. We absolutely love coming here, not only for the awesome opportunity to play softball at the beautiful Rogers sports complex, but also the great hospitality that we always receive at the restaurants and other stores as well as the warm welcome and treatment we receive while staying in Iowa Central housing.”

Mears wrote ”The term used on our van was only used due to tradition of the term used from many teams throughout the years from all across the state.”

He compared calling Fort Dodge ”Dirty Dodge” to calling Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines ”The Well.”

”Again, we apologize for any misconception that this seemed to have caused and we will be very conscientious about this in the future,” Mears wrote.

Mount Pleasant finished the tournament in sixth place in Class 4A.