Student fans barred from Georgetown football game

Student fans are banned from attending football games at Georgetown High School, at least temporarily, following allegations that racial “taunts” from the home crowd led to a fight between players and coaches from the high school and visiting team Roxbury Prep.

“Whatever happened Friday night doesn’t represent what we stand for,” Georgetown Public Schools Superintendent Carol Jacobs said in a school committee meeting Thursday.

Jacobs has brought in an outside firm to investigate how the football game Sept. 17 spiraled into a physical altercation that led police to cut the game short. Georgetown had been winning the game against

Roxbury Prep 44-8.

The next day, Roxbury assistant coach Jamaal Hunt posted a message on Facebook stating his players and staff “were ridiculed, called N bombs by players, faculty, staff, spectators and were taunted all night.”

Jacobs called Friday night “ugly” and said she and other school officials talked with Roxbury Prep administrators about how to best address the “heated” situation. School administrators considered canceling Georgetown’s Friday home game against KIPP Academy Lynn Collegiate High School, but after athletic directors and principals talked, they agreed on a strict set of protocols instead.

Those protocols included banning student fans from both schools from attending the game and allotting players two guests each, to allow for parents and guardians to attend. Georgetown assigned an extra police officer at the game and also reconfigured teams’ bench placement on the sidelines. Jacobs also moved the game up one hour, to 6 p.m.

Some Georgetown residents who attended the committee meeting expressed concerns about those safety measures.

“I fear the following week we’re going to have to do something else to make the game happen. I fear that outside towns are going to interpret us not allowing the kids at the game as an admission of guilt, of some sort,” resident Manny Gasca said.

Another parent of two boys he said were “accused during and after the game for throwing racial slurs” said his sons “are hurting” and “confused” over the allegations.

But one resident and parent of Georgetown football alumni, Carol Esposito, said she fully backed the move.

“This is not new. This has happened before. We need a cooling off period, and I think it protects the kids,” she said.

Jacobs said there’s no set timeline for the investigation, and would not say whether the student fan ban will be in place for future games. Local police are doing a parallel investigation, Jacobs said.

“It is not something we’ve made a decision on for the rest of the season. I don’t know, going forward, because I don’t know what the investigation is going to show,” she said.