Man who gave tortillas thrown at game denies racist intent

CORONADO — A California man who claims he provided the tortillas that San Diego-area high school students threw at the basketball team of a mostly Latino high school last weekend has said that his intentions were not racist.

Coronado High School alumnus Luke Serna said he gave packs of tortillas to players for a celebration and that throwing them was a tradition at University of California, Santa Barbara, where he attended, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. In a statement posted online, Serna said the tortillas were thrown after the game was over and a confrontation broke out between players of the two teams.

“There was absolutely no racial intent behind that action,” he wrote.

“I brought the tortillas to the game and provided them to players and cheerleaders to toss out onto the floor of the gym in celebration IF, and they certainly did, win the Regional Championship Game.”

Serna also criticized the firing of Coronado’s head basketball coach following the incident with mostly Latino Orange Glen High School of Escondido, Calif.

The Coronado Unified School Board voted unanimously this week to release coach JD Laaperi following Saturday’s division championship game, where mostly white Coronado High School beat visiting Orange Glen 60-57 in overtime.

There was a squabble between coaching staff from both schools. Video widely shared on social media showed at least two Coronado students throwing tortillas into the air toward the other team.

The incident sparked a local outcry from some community activists and has drawn national attention.

Laaperi said on social media that a community member brought the tortillas to the game and that the incident was “unacceptable and racist in nature” and he did not condone it.

Coronado Unified School District Superintendent Karl Mueller issued a public apology, calling the act “reprehensible.”

“No matter the intent of the tosser, the ethnic implications are unavoidable; they’re undeniable,” Lee Pontes, Coronado school board president, said this week.

Orange Glen’s coach and two parents of the

after losing in the 2018 and 2019 Wimbledon finals. Coco Gauff, now 17, returns to the site of her big breakthrough at 15. Could there be yet another new Slam champion?

What matters most to many is simply that The Championships — as it’s known to locals — will be played after being the only Grand Slam site that remained silent during the COVID-19 outbreak.

“In my mind — and I think in a lot of players’ minds — it’s the biggest tournament in the world, and the most prestigious. It was a bitter disappointment to everybody. And it was historical,” said Evert, who won three of her 18 major singles trophies at Wimbledon. “It made you realize how bad the world was and how bad the pandemic really was.”

The French Open shifted from May-June to September-October in 2020, then was played again this year, delayed just one week. That shift left just two weeks, instead of three, between the clay of Paris and the grass of London, which could be an advantage to those most at ease on the lawns of Wimbledon, such as eight-time champion Federer or seven-time champ Williams.

“Probably, yes, for those who know how to play on grass and don’t need much time for the preparation on it, it could probably be better,” said Petra Kvitova, the Czech left-hander who won Wimbledon in 2011 and 2014.

The U.S. Open was played in August-September 2020, albeit without fans, and the Australian Open was delayed by three weeks in 2021.

But the All England Club, unlike groups running other majors, had cancellation insurance that paid 180 million pounds ($250 million), according to chairman Ian Hewitt.

“Everything happened very quickly . ... We were all not sure, anymore, what was going on,” said Federer, who missed most of 2020 after two operations on his right knee. “I remember being on (ATP) Council calls and trying to understand the magnitude and (asking), ‘When is the clay going to start?’ And then it literally went, within a couple of weeks, Wimbledon was canceled.”

There are changes this time — and on the horizon.

The singles champions’ checks are reduced more than 25% to about $2.4 million, although the overall cut in prize money is closer to 5%.

There will be fewer fans than usual for most of the two weeks — they’ll need to prove they’ve been vaccinated, tested negative for COVID-19 or had

the illness within the preceding six months — and while the customary Middle Sunday without competition remains in effect, that will change in 2022, when the full fortnight will see matches.

Instead of renting private homes in Wimbledon Village, as some players usually do, the athletes and their entourages must stay at a designated hotel in London as part of what the tournament is calling a “minimized risk environment,” with coronavirus testing and a “track-and-trace program.”

“Obviously it’s not going to be normal. We’re not going to be staying at home. It’s going to be quite different,” said Johanna Konta, a British player who is a three-time Slam semifinalist, including at Wimbledon in 2017. “But it’s still grass. It’s still home. It’s still a home crowd. It’s still home comforts, in that sense, so I think it will just be exciting.”