S.F. coach is accused of racially charged gibe
The head baseball coach at San Francisco’s Galileo high school is under fire for allegedly mocking an inattentive Asian American player during a recent game by yelling at him in faux Chinese gibberish.
The coach’s mocking drew laughs from the players — but heat from another player’s father, Nakia Kashima.
The racially charged incident happened during a varsity game between Galileo and Lick-Wilmerding High School at Skyline College on Feb. 24.
As Kashima tells it, the tar-
geted Galileo player, who is U.S.-born, was standing on first base and appeared puzzled by instructions being called to him by his coach, Don Papa. The coach then let loose on his player — yelling “at the top of his lungs from the dugout in a fake Chinese dialect, ‘Ching, chong, something something,’ ” Kashima said.
He said Papa added: “Do you understand me now? Do you understand English?”
“To do this in 2017 in San Francisco is outrageous,” Kashima said. “It’s very personal to me — my father was in the internment camps.”
Kashima’s account of the incident was confirmed to us by a second adult who attended the game but did not want to be named because of his relationship with the coach.
Papa, a longtime social studies teacher and coach at Galileo, did not return our call seeking comment. But a parent whose son formerly played for Papa told us he believes the coach’s comment wasn’t racially motivated.
“He likes to light up the boys, thinking that will motivate them to do better,” said the parent, who asked that we not use his name because of his ongoing involvement with the school. “It has the opposite effect.”
Kashima, a San Francisco firefighter, said he sent an email to Galileo’s principal and athletic director complaining about the episode and calling for Papa to be removed from his coaching duties.
“It took every ounce of my strength to sit there (during the game) and not do or say a word,” he said. “I did not want to embarrass Galileo baseball and especially my son.”
Galileo’s principal, Michael Reimer, responded in a Feb. 27 email to Kashima, “I want you to know that we take these kinds of charges seriously and will begin to investigate immediately. However, because of the sensitive nature of the situation, and a number of district rules and regulations regarding discipline for staff members, I might not be able to fully update you on the outcome of the investigation, or any possible consequences.”
But Kashima said Reimer did notify him on March 8 that, while he could not discuss the “touchy subject” of discipline, Papa would be allowed to stay on as coach.
Reimer did not return our call seeking comment, but instead forwarded our request to the school district’s communications office.
School district spokeswoman Heidi Anderson said in an email that “we cannot comment on personnel matters.” Time’s up: The drive to recall San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee died a quiet death when its leaders failed to deliver any of the 47,565 voter signatures needed to put the recall measure on the ballot.
“Recall leaders blundered from the beginning, and never gathered any significant public or political support,” said P.J. Johnston, spokesman for the antirecall effort.
Recall effort leader Mike Murphy did not return our call.
The recall drive, launched last year, was prompted by Lee’s close ties with tech and real estate interests. At the time, many of those close to Lee considered it a threat to the mayor, given his slide in popularity.
Lee’s friends in the business community and labor raised $75,000 to beat back the measure and spent $10,000, mostly on legal fees.
However, just as quickly as it was launched, the drive went off the road when a confrontation between recall backers and a group of 200 Lee supporters — many of them Asian American — was caught on video.
It showed a recall supporter shouting, “Go back to China,” and, “You take your Chinese asses back where you came from.”
The video went viral, and even the mayor’s staunchest critics condemned the outburst. Whatever momentum the recall effort might have had was stopped in its tracks. From Russia with love: On his official website, East Bay Rep. Eric Swalwell has turned allegations of Trump administration ties to Russian oligarchs into a bit of a board game called “connecting the dots.”
But the Dublin Democrat says he is deadly serious about getting to the bottom of any personal, political or financial ties President Trump might have to Russian interests.
“Did those personal ties merge with the presidential campaign? Who else on the Trump team had dealings with the Russians? Were the Russians trying to curry favor?” said Swalwell, a member of the House Intelligence Committee.
After hearing FBI Director James Comey tell the panel Monday that the agency is investigating possible collusion between Trump aides and Russia during the presidential campaign, Swalwell said, “We need an independent commission along the lines of the Warren Commission or the 9/11 Commission.”
Such a panel, he said, would look into Russian involvement in the election and — unlike the FBI — be free to make its findings public.
“No one should be excluded,” Swalwell said. “It’s a complicated set of facts. But we don’t want it to happen again.”