RACISM CREEPS ONTO HIGH SCHOOL PITCH

Awestern Pennsylvania school district cancelled all sports games against teams from a nearby district after players said racist slurs were used during a recent boys’ soccer match.

The Penn Hills boys’ varsity team lost, 6-1, last week to undefeated Connellsville, a school located nearly an hour away from Penn Hills. And while it’s perhaps not uncommon for the winning team to start gloating or showboating as a blowout winds down, Javon Williams, a junior left back for Penn Hills, said the taunts turned racist in the second half.

The 16-year-old said multiple Connellsville players called him and his other black teammates the N-word on the field, uttering the slur out of earshot of the referees.

“One time I watched a player walk up to my teammate’s ear and say it,” Williams said this week. “And whenhetoldtheref,thereferee did nothing.”

The Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League, the region’s governing body for high school sports, is investigating the incident. In the meantime, the Penn Hills School District cancelled all games against the Connellsville Area School District until the investigation is concluded.

“It was so disturbing that it warranted our position and immediate involvement of WPIAL,” Nancy Hines, Penn Hills superintendent, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

The WPIAL has clear rules mandating that member schools take “preventive measures to discourage negative behaviours.” Williams said that never happened.

Jonah Silverman, who also plays for Penn Hills, said the verbal abuse began early in the match, soon after Penn Hills scored the first goal.

After the goal, Silverman said, one of his teammates, who is black, walked up to him and said, “Hey, they just called me the N-word.”

As Connellsville took control of the game, Silverman said, the atmosphere became chippy, and the verbal abuse more brazen. “It just got hostile after that,” he said.

The Penn Hills players allege that the racism extended off the field and into the Connellsville student fan section, aswell.Whilehewasonthe sideline readying for a throwin, Williams said, the few dozen fans in the bleachers started yelling normal sporting taunts at him, making fun of his throwing motion and laughing about the score of the game.

He turned around and yelled “shut up” at the stands. In response, Williams said, fans yelled back, “Shut the fup, you f — g n--.”

Timothy O’Malley, the league’s executive director, said he did not yet know all the details of last Thursday’s incident, and that the results of the investigation will be released by next Tuesday, after information from Connellsville, Penn Hills and the match’s referees are presented at the organization’s monthly board meeting on Sept. 17. “Apparently there were comments made that were racially insensitive,” he said. “But I don’t know be- yond that. I wasn’t there.”

Joseph Bradley, the superintendent of Connellsville Area School District, said that district is fully co-operating with the investigation.

Williams said this is the first time he has been the victim of racism on the field. O’Malley said he is unaware of any other similar situations in his league.

Penn Hills players tried to make the referees and a police officer who was standing near the bleachers aware of the racist taunts, but according to Williams, their complaints fell on deaf ears.

“What the police officer said was he heard nothing,” Williams said. “What the referee said was he heard nothing. And all the kids say we’re lying.”

Williams’ mother, Toya, who grew up in Penn Hills, said her nephew, who played quarterback for a nearby school, has been spat on and called the N-word at games.

“I should’ve known better,” she said. “We already had the police officer talk; now I gotta have the ‘How to play sports in a different type of community’ conversation. It’s getting old. It’s 2018. Can’t we figure something else out here?”