Racism that athletes face on the state’s playing fields and courts isn’t going away, but some athletic administrators across Maine believe that the people who are guilty of making inappropriate comments are decreasing.
The Hyde School from Bath, a private boarding school, withdrew its boys varsity basketball team from the Maine Principals’ Association this week after its fans heard racial slurs and there was a wide disparity in foul shots in the team’s loss to Forest Hills of Jackman in the Western Maine Class D final on Feb. 21 in Augusta.
Forest Hills took 45 free throws to Hyde’s six.
The Hyde School will re-enter the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council next season. That is the league in which all the rest of the school’s athletic teams play, with the exception of the girls basketball squad, which will remain under the Maine Principals’ Association umbrella.
Hyde also has encountered what it believed to be biased officiating in the 1980s and 1990s while other schools in the state have been on the receiving end of fans echoing their resentment toward private school teams and opposing players who are culturally diverse.
Three seasons ago, the Lee Academy boys basketball team and its coach Randy Harris were hit by racial taunting on social media. A Bangor High School football player was targeted by fans during a game a few seasons ago against Oxford Hills in South Paris.
It wasn’t an “abrupt decision for the Hyde boys basketball team to leave the [Maine Principals’ Association],” according to Malcolm Gauld, the president and chief executive officer of the Hyde Schools, which has an affiliate school in Connecticut.
“This has been a long time coming,” he said.
In the 1993 state Class D final, Jonesport-Beals had 46 free throws to Hyde’s 12 en route to a 74-59 victory. That led to a Sports Illustrated story in March 1993 that said Hyde coach Tom Bragg believed the biased officiating toward his Hyde players hadn’t changed since he was a player who helped Hyde win a state crown in 1981.
For years, Gauld has heard the complaints that “Maine championships are for Maine kids.”
The Hyde School has students from 30 states.
“I don’t disagree with that,” said Gauld. “When we aren’t very good, we never hear complaints. But when we have a team that wins a championship, and it is made up of kids from out of state, I understand that it might cause resentment.”
Steve Vanidestine, Bangor High School athletic director, was on hand for a football game several years ago in South Paris where some Oxford Hills fans used racially disparaging remarks toward an African-American running back for the Rams.
Vanidestine, who also was a member of the coaching staff, relayed the problem to administrators at Oxford Hills.
“And they dealt with it properly,” he said.
Tony Hamlin, the athletic director and former boys basketball coach at Milo’s Penquis Valley High School, said the cultural bias “isn’t just a black issue.”
Hamlin was disturbed by how fans treated Lee Academy’s Harris and his Panda basketball team during games and on websites.
Lee Academy, which had several foreign-born students, won the Class C state championship in 2011 and captured the Eastern Maine title in 2012.
Hamlin insisted Harris doesn’t recruit his players and wrote, “For anyone to make comments to his children about his worth as a human being is disgraceful. For anyone to use blatantly racist terms to describe his players is reprehensible.”
Regarding the slurs directed toward the Hyde School and Lee Academy, Hamlin said on Wednesday that “there is no place for it.”
“Fans, especially those in rural areas, place more importance on basketball than there should be. And they don’t have much exposure to a lot of different cultures,” he said. “I’m not surprised a whole lot by the Hyde School’s decision. It’s sad. None of their players deserve to be subjected to that.”
Hamlin does feel significant strides have been made concerning cultural bias.
“The kids nowadays are a lot cooler about stuff than we ever were. They’re pretty much color blind. With cable TV, they get exposure to so many different activities,” said Hamlin. “There is also a shame issue nowadays. People who run their [racist] mouths are being called out for their behavior by other people now. That wasn’t the case 30-40 years ago.”
Lee Academy is in its eighth year with dormitory students, and Harris said their treatment by those outside the community “was much worse the first few years. It has been much better the last couple of years.”
“There is always going to be [cultural] bias. That goes for any place in the country. There will be good old boy networks and racism in certain areas,” Harris added.
Harris’ teams were subject to chants of “U.S.A.” from opposing fans.
He also pointed out that if it wasn’t for Lee Academy’s boarding students, the school probably would have closed several years ago.
He tells his players to expect opposing teams to go all-out to beat them because of their success and foreign-born players.
But he insisted that Lee Academy has never had a problem with an opposing player or coach.
He also informs the players that if they’re a title contender, they can expect negative comments on the websites and from the stands.
“I don’t hear much at games. I try to focus on the court and not in the stands,” he said.
Rob O’Leary, Portland High School athletic director and a former athletic director in Massachusetts, and Vanidestine said one way to discourage improper behavior begins with the prioritizing of sportsmanship in the school.
“Sportsmanship starts and ends with us,” said Vanidestine. “We expect our players, coaches and fans to present themselves in a positive, caring and compassionate manner. We are responsible for taking care of our own problems.”
“Sportsmanship is number one. We believe in that strongly. Win or lose, we have to be good sports,” said O’Leary. “You never see athletes have problems because they respect each other. But you always have that one person in a crowd that thinks because he paid money, he can yell and scream. Our job as administrators is to educate people that is not what we stand for.”
O’Leary, in his first season at Portland, said they haven’t had any issues this season.
“In the [Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference], we have a sportsmanship summit every other year,” said Vanidestine. “Athletic directors from all the schools discuss questions that were raised by the kids.”
Vanidestine said the KVAC administrators have a very healthy line of communication and are “very good at taking care of issues that come up.”
“One of our parents took a video of a hockey game in which a player from another team punched one of our players and knocked the player down from behind,” said Vanidestine. “I contacted that school’s athletic director, and it was taken care of.
“I feel our kids have been treated with great respect [over the years]. With the exception of a few cases, I couldn’t be happier,” he said.
Hamlin and Gauld said people lose sight of the fact that public school teams have definite advantages over private schools.
“No one ever discusses the advantage public schools have,” said Gauld. “Public school kids play together beginning in fourth and fifth grades.They’re being brought up in a system so they can [eventually] contribute to the local high school team. We don’t even know who our kids are going to be [until school starts].”