Unfortunately, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association decided to suspend Williams for four games and require that he attend anger management classes. The Telegram & Gazette front page story on the decision noted that in 1992 the MIAA gave a milder penalty to a coach who grabbed a referee. When the coach of St. John’s grabbed a referee, spinning him around, during a game in 2004, no penalty at all was imposed.

To all those aware of racism’s deep roots in our society, Williams’s punishment represents not only a failure to consider his serious charges, but also a warning to others not to raise the issue again.

Immediately below the Williams story, the T&G featured a report that the History Channel has chosen our region to stand in for the Old South in an upcoming film. Was this a coincidence or commentary on the MIAA?

Above that is another article: “Boy’s basketball coach suspended: South High’s Williams alleged racist referees.” From Jackie Reis’s article:

South High Community School boys’ varsity basketball coach Patrick Williams has been suspended for two weeks or four games, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association announced yesterday.

The penalty comes after Mr. Williams alleged that two of three referees at a Division 1 semifinals game March 5 were racist and caused his team to lose to Holy Name Central Catholic Junior/Senior High School in double overtime. Mr. Williams apologized to the MIAA five days later for “bringing racism into the conversation” and for violating MIAA rule 50.1.1, which prohibits coaches from publicly criticizing game officials.

[...]

The MIAA suspended former Burncoat High School boys’ basketball coach Jim Diamantopoulos for one year for allegedly grabbing a referee in 1992. That suspension, however, was reduced to eight days upon appeal after the MIAA sportsmanship committee determined there was “no physical assault” by Mr. Diamantopoulos, who missed just one game.

The ruling doesn’t appear on the MIAA website. No idea if Mr. Williams was additionally reprimanded for being “uppity.”

If you want to support calls for an independent review of accusations of racism in local high school basketball, you gotta be there.

If you suspect that Pat Williams is “the sort of person many parents would want coaching their children — and watching their backs” (Mr. Moynihan, T&G), or that “he also may be . . . someone who deserves not a circle-the-wagons reprimand but something more akin to Teacher of the Year” (Worcester Magazine), you gotta be there.

Thursday, March 16th , 6pm, Worcester City Hall. The rally is at 6pm, followed by the School Committee meeting inside City Hall at 7pm. Updates at Indymedia. Rally sponsored by Saints Francis & Therese Catholic Worker.

• Support an independent investigation of Coach Williams’s concerns
• Oppose retaliation against Coach Williams.
• Speak out against unjust bias of all kinds.
• Support School Committee member Dr. Ogretta McNeil’s motion to “…review those unacceptable behaviors which consciously and unconsciously may reflect bias….”

Also there will be like 500 members of the teacher’s union demonstrating outside on some other issue. So there will be a big social aspect.

• South High student (18MB .mov)
• South High basketball team (18MB .mov)
• South High parent Scott Schaeffer-Duffy (20MB .mov)
• The crowd (9MB .mov)
• South High alum (19MB .mov)

RSS feed for Pie-and-Coffee-related videos, via Videobomb. Subscribe to it via Democracy Player, or another tool.

Coach Williams apologizes: As explained by the capable Jim Wilson, Coach Pat Williams wrote a letter of apology, with one copy going “to Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association executive director Richard Neal” and another to the newspaper. They didn’t reprint the letter by itself, but they quote what seems like most of it:

Mr. Williams’ letter begins: “I would like to apologize for bringing racism into the conversation I had with a reporter after the South-Holy Name game last Sunday. I realize now I have violated MIAA Rule 50.1.1, which prohibits public criticism of game officials, and I apologize for doing so.”

[...]

The letter goes on to say: “South High had a great season ending with a 19-3 record and the Inter-High title. Jinazean Ball was the first 1,000-point scorer since 1992; the other seniors, Brian Marvie, Raleek Byfield, Karl Gonzalez, Elijah Huges, Shamari Buchanan, Nick Beltre and Michael Johnson, ended their high school basketball career with dignity. I want to thank the entire basketball team for bringing the program back. I have apologized to the team for taking the spotlight away from them.”

Mr. Williams concludes: “Finally, I would like to congratulate Holy Name for getting into the championship game. This was never about Holy Name, their terrific team, or their coaches.”

I don’t know of any groups that have organized to push for an independent investigation of Williams’s charges of referee bias. According to the article, the MIAA is investigating the situation, but the extent of this investigation is not explained. Unless this investigation is thorough and transparent, I don’t think people will be satisfied.

ACLU may enter Mr. Hetero lawsuit: Milton Valencia reports that the ACLU is considering backing the Mr. Hetero organizers in their lawsuit against the city. The organizers don’t want to have to pay for the cops who guarded the event. From reading this article, it still isn’t clear if the city required Mr. Hetero to hire police for outside the event, or if this was a requirement of Mechanics Hall. The article reiterates that Tom Crouse asked for police protection inside the venue to prevent people from disrupting it.

If the ACLU gets involved, Pie and Coffee will ask them for a clearer explanation of the situation.

A large and diverse crowd came together on extremely short notice, and took the high ground to correct misconceptions, provide more evidence that racism and other biases exist in Worcester, and, most importantly, to suggest positive remedies.

Numerous people suggested that this controversy provided Worcester with an “opportunity” to improve the situation, to help us all become more sensitive toward race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. The night ended with a group hug.

A T&G reporter asked what I hoped to get out of the event, and I said that the people of Worcester needed to know the full story: that Coach Williams had raised this issue many times before, and that his remarks were not those of a sore loser playing the race card. I also told the reporter that we wanted an independent investigation of his allegations.

The reporter asked what I thought of the turnout, and I said that I had organized many protests with greater advance preparation that turned out only a fraction of the people. He agreed that it was a very large crowd.

After the rally, I was told that a caller on the Jordan Levy show called in to say, “I drove by City Hall and there are only 30 people at the rally. I hope a bus runs over Scott Schaeffer-Duffy.” This morning’s T&G includes a photo taken very early in the rally which depicts about 30 people [See ed. note]. It also includes another photo which I looked at quickly and said, “Why is there a picture of some white guy?” My daughter pointed out to me that it was me. I replied, “It’s still some white guy.”

The article confirmed my fears. All of the quotes, save two in the last paragraph, are of white people. Nowhere is the size of the rally described. The introductory sentence leads the readers to believe that only South High fans or employees attended. One might think it was a bunch of disgruntled fans.

The quote from the football coach that he has heard opposing teams use “the N-word” for the South team was important corroborating evidence of Coach Williams’s concerns, but featuring it so prominently (5 paragraphs) will only fuel the fury of those who are complaining against Coach Williams on talk radio. They’ll be saying, “I went to the Holy Name-South basketball game and never heard the refs use the n-word.”

People seem to have no awareness of how studies have shown that black male kindergarten students are punished five times more often for the same infractions as are white males, how black males are seldom tracked for college, how black males are many times more likely to be jailed for the same offense as are whites, and on and on. Most people have virtually no idea how pervasive and insidious racism is in our society.

As I said last night, it is the job of minorities to alert us all. I need women to point out to me when I am being sexist. I need Jews to chide me on anti-semetism. I need gays to check my homophobia and I need Latinos, Asians, Blacks and others to check my racial biases. We’ve become very sensitive to sexual abuse, but we still blame the victim when it comes to race. This has got to stop, and it won’t until all our institutions, especially the press, start publicizing all the facts in an incident like this one.

People need to know the truth about Coach Williams and about our rally. I urge everyone to call the T&G and complain about today’s coverage. All those who came out last night, especially those black parents, teachers, and students who had the courage to speak out, deserve to have been heard. Let’s move forward on this issue. Let’s stop misrepresenting the facts.

Last night’s rally was a beautiful event. My heartfelt thanks go out to everyone who came.

Bob Waldrop: got 8.2% of the vote in the Oklahoma City mayor’s race, with a no-budget campaign. He writes:

If I had known the watch party would be so much fun, I would have run for office years ago….

Coach Pat Williams: About 100 people rallied to support South High basketball coach Pat Williams Wednesday night at Worcester City Hall. He’s been attacked from all sides for suggesting that refs are biased against his team, and that the bias might be racial.

The show of support was fantastic. Dozens of people came forward to speak, including four members of the South High basketball team, who said they support their coach 100%. All kinds of people spoke, including many South High students, teachers, alums, and coaches. There were also teachers from other schools and other folks from around Worcester.

Hermis Yanis taped a lot of it for an hour-long show on the mighty WCCA TV-13.

Update: Worcester Magazine supports call for investigation.

Others askpeople to show their support for an independent investigation of the bias charges. Key points:

• This was not a post-game “eruption.” Coach Williams has repeatedly raised concerns within the school department about biased refereeing against South High.
• Principal Maureen Ciccone was aware of the situation, and attempted to address it earlier and immediately prior to Sunday’s game.
• Concerns about the referees have previously been brought to the attention of Athletic Director John Pepi who promised that the two referees in question would not be scheduled for the South/Holy Name game.
• Other coaches in the WPS system have also had concerns about the referees.

Ho, ho, ho: WoMag also remembers back to 1985 when Scott Schaeffer-Duffy and Dan Ethier raised concerns about conditions at the county jail.

Photo: Scott Schaeffer-Duffy arrested for protesting war toys while dressed as Santa Claus. Worcester Magazine.

Pope photo: Another wonderful one from Whispers.

Mr. Hetero mania: The links keep coming. Here is an inaccurate but detailed look at the event from someone concerned about the Gay Menace. In no way were the Mr Hetero demonstrations a gays-vs-Christians thing. None of the demonstrators were making anti-Christian statements to my knowledge, whereas Mr. Crouse himself has repeatedly insulted and derided both Catholics and most kinds of Protestants. All of the conservative Worcester Christians I’ve talked to thought that Mr. Hetero was a stupid idea. None of them supported it.

And here is an Indymedia comment purporting to give a brief history of Tom Crouse’s pastorship.

Update: Tom Crouse suing the city for the cost of the police detail he was forced to hire for his failed event. T&G:

Police Chief Gary J. Gemme had not seen the suit yesterday, but said it is without merit. He argued the event venue, Mechanics Hall, had asked for a bigger police presence given the expected protest, and sent an original invoice that accounted for more of a police detail than what was actually provided. He also said Rev. Crouse may have issues with the police presence now because the event raised far less in proceeds than had been expected.

Chief Gemme said he provided the security detail because it was requested. He called Rev. Crouse a bigot and said there was a low turnout because of the nature of the event.

“Obviously, he didn’t have enough money to pay for the venue and the detail,” the chief said.

The case was filed by the Alliance Defense Fund.

The chief said Rev. Crouse had raised concerns on his own that a protester could infiltrate the event and create a disturbance during the pageant.

This is a good point. At Mr. Hetero, Crouse repeatedly praised the police, and threatened the audience with police intervention if anyone caused any trouble. He clearly enjoyed their presence and essentially brandished them for his own purposes. He didn’t act like a man who was unhappy to be paying them.

It’s not at all clear to me how Mechanics Hall asking Crouse to pay for a police detail has anything to do with the City, or anything to do with free speech. Crouse was not holding this event on a street corner or in a park, and no government agency was asking him to pay anything. According to this story, Crouse was the first person to ask for cops, and then Mechanics Hall asked for more. There are far larger public demonstrations in Worcester (like the Coach Williams one last night at City Hall) that have no police presence. (Though uniformed police at public events are common around here.)

Sounds to me like Crouse got scared at the thought of protesters (it’s easier to show courage on a radio show than in real life), and only later realized that in Worcester we can have outspoken, public disagreements while remaining peaceful. (Maybe in Holland, Mass., they’re not so well-behaved.)

Crouse has talked about holding Mr. Hetero contests in other parts of the country. Will other people really want to co-sponsor a boring event that loses them lots of money and leads to lawsuits?

Jesuit podcast: The English Jesuits have a short, sweet podcast called pray-as-you-go. (Via Mark Mossa, S.J.)

Foie gras: They’re considering a ban on this gourmet item in Massachusetts–check out this Florida news story to see what the fuss is about. Warning: contains footage of rats eating ducks alive.

Zack Berger: is, among many other things, a Conservative Jew. And he’s been thinking through homosexuality:

1.1. The issue of homosexuality within (or without) halachah can be viewed in many ways….

2.1. Adult, loving, consensual homosexual relationships are to be morally valued, i.e. are the opposite of immoral.

See also: our interview with Zack.

Vern: In the tradition of Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry, Vern tell’s it like it is:

As you know I have personally flipped off Dick Cheney from less than ten feet away, so I’ve looked into the eyes of the abyss.

[...]

If you believe that it’s okay for the government to tap your phone line without a warrant, you don’t believe in America. It’s that simple. I mean what do you think is the BASIC PREMISE of this fuckin place anyway? If you don’t give a shit about the most basic American values then 1) please give all your flags to somebody who deserves them and 2) stop trying to change what America is about. It’s not like you didn’t know what you were getting into when you lived here. Ben Franklin has not been kept secret from you. The constitution is widely available, you could’ve checked what it said. I’m not gonna tell you to move to Russia, because that would be unamerican. But you don’t go into a vegan sandwich shop and ask for ribs, and you don’t go to America and ask to be spied on by the government.

[...]

You can’t choose to abandon everything America is about because you’re scared. I’m not saying that’s for pussies, although it is. But I’m saying that it just doesn’t make any god damn sense. If freedom puts us in danger, that sucks. Because we’re keepin the freedom. That’s just the way we do it around here.

I also liked his Oscar column:

People tried to turn it into a gay thing, like “oh, Hollywood is trying to prove they’re enlightened so they’ll vote for a gay movie.” But I don’t think that’s even it. It’s just a good movie. And I should point out, Larry McMurtry wrote this movie. The guy wore jeans and cowboy boots to the Oscars. He wrote LONESOME DOVE. He doesn’t have a computer and still writes on a typewriter. If this guy is okay with the gays then maybe it’s time to figure this type of tolerance is normal and not something you need to brag about in 2006. BROKEBACK deserved it not because we gotta prove a point about a shepherd’s right to love another shepherd, but because it’s a real good movie.

The big story is that the South High coach, in a considered statement to the press, violated Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association rules by criticizing the refs and suggesting they were motivated by racism:

“It’s everywhere, but the Catholic schools are worse,” [South coach Patrick Williams] told the Telegram & Gazette in a 29-minute interview after his team’s 60-56 loss Sunday afternoon at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. “You have the same officials, and they look at all black players and a black coach, and they make the calls.”
(Telegram & Gazette)

T&G subscribers can get part of the story over there. Indymedia has Scott Schaeffer-Duffy’s take:

I saw five South High games this year and noticed a definite difference when South played Holy Name and Saint John’s. In both games, South took substantial leads over their opponents only to suddenly face a disproportionate number of foul calls against them. It was like watching the all-black squad from South having to play with cement blocks on their feet to even up the competition.
[...]
If we dismiss Coach Williams’s charge without absolutely clear independent review, we tell black youth in Worcester that they will never get a fair shake in this town. Let’s not go that route.

My favorite tidbit is that Worcester Public Schools athletic director John Pepi called the refs to apologize. That’s right: no investigation has happened, but the schools have apologized to the refs.

This reminds me of Harry Whittington apologizing to Dick Cheney for getting shot.

Postscript

There was a rally to support Coach Williams, Wednesday, March 8, 6-7 pm, at Worcester City Hall.

It was fantastic. Dozens of people came forward to speak, including four members of the South High basketball team, who said they support their coach 100%. All kinds of people spoke, including many South High students, teachers, alums, and coaches. There were also teachers from other schools and other folks from around Worcester.

Hermis Yanis taped a lot of it for an hour-long show on the mighty WCCA TV-13.