'WPIAL is Wrong! Racist Taunts at a Football Game are NOT a Matter of Both Sides' by Steven Singer

Don’t look for justice from the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL).

After a referee and a mostly white football team allegedly made racist taunts against a mostly black team, WPIAL decided BOTH teams will have to undergo mandatory sensitivity training.

Players from Steel Valley School District contend that during a November playoff game at their home field, rivals South Side Area School District called them the N-word and “monkeys” as well as purposefully incapacitated their star player.

WPIAL Executive Director Amy Scheuneman said her organization is refusing to take sides and students, coaches and administrators for both districts will have to undergo racial sensitivity training.

It is absurd. Imagine making a gunman and the person he shot go through firearms training.

Talk about false equivalency!

“We don’t want to walk away saying you’re right and you’re wrong, but we need to learn from this,” Scheuneman said. “We need to all work together to make that happen.”

Calls for unity are great but justice needs to come first. It’s nearly impossible for everyone to just get along when you don’t hold wrongdoers accountable for their actions – especially when the victims are mostly black and the perpetrators are mostly white.

Though Steel Valley went on to win the game, their star senior running back and linebacker Nijhay Burt suffered a season ending ankle injury which his family alleges was caused by South Side Players on purpose.

Burt’s mother Shunta Parms says, “…The two players that tackled him, they were pushing off his ankle. They were twisting it as they got up. After they got up they cheered in his face and said ‘Yeah! We got you now!’”

WPIAL board of directors and Diversity and Inclusion Council heard testimony for more than four hours on Wednesday.

The meeting was closed to the public at the request of the South Side District from Beaver County, and WPIAL officials have refused to give specific details of what was said behind closed doors.

However, Scheuneman was adamant that the board did not find any evidence the official used racial taunts.

“…The board did not find that to be accurate,” Scheuneman said.

I would love to know what evidence there was to so unequivocally clear the referee.

Especially since she noted the other allegations came down to a matter of he said-she said.

There were “conflicting reports” about what happened and “direct testimony against” the claims of Burt and the Steel Valley School District, Scheuneman said.

“Based on what we heard, I would say that, while there may be tendencies to lean one way or another, it was inconclusive, specifically, one way, as opposed to another.”

Ma’am, isn’t it your job to lean one way or another?

You need to be impartial at first but then you listen to the evidence and decide who was at fault.

Either South Side Beaver players used hate speech against Steel Valley players or not. Either they intentionally injured Steel Valley’s star player or not.

And if they did not, that means Steel Valley players made the whole thing up.

Do you really find that possibility credible?

“There was testimony on both sides, and there were missed opportunities by adults from both schools, so we do feel that it’s important for everybody to learn from the events that happened and take something positive from it,” Scheuneman said.

The most specific she’d get in terms of blame was to say that the South Side District did not properly handle a previous incident that could’ve prevented this one.

And Steel Valley’s coach did not report his player’s accusations to the head referee.

Therefore, they’re both to blame!?

What the heck are you smoking!?

Steel Valley Superintendent Ed Wehrer issued a statement that shed some light on the previous incident at South Side Beaver:

“The testimony by South Side Area confirmed that a month prior to the playoff game at issue a member of their team had behaved the same way in a game against Carlynton High School, as witnessed by the Athletic Director at Carlynton. Combined with our statements, that admission established a pattern of racist behavior by our opponent, which should have reinforced the trustworthiness of our complaint.” 

The only specific mention of wrongdoing on Steel Valley’s part is neglecting to alert the head referee. But the district’s actions make perfect sense in context. Why would the district go to the referees after allegations that one of them was also guilty of making racial taunts!? Isn’t it logical that Steel Valley and Burt waited to file a report against the Beaver County District!?

South Side Beaver district is 96% white. There are so few black students, 2019 Census data puts the number at 0%.

Meanwhile, Steel Valley is 72% white and 23% black with a higher percentage of children of color on the football team than in the district as a whole.

Are you telling me it’s likely that a mostly black team who is already crushing their rivals (they won 20-12) would make up being the target of racism? Are you saying Burt would make up how his leg was manhandled by the opposing team?

And then we have the issue of socioeconomics.

South Side Beaver is a wealthier district than Steel Valley.

Median household income at the South Side district is $69,905. At Steel Valley it’s $42,661.

At the South Side, 7.7% of residents live below the poverty line. At Steel Valley it’s 17.4%.

These make a difference.

More privileged students are way more likely to think they deserve to win just because of who they are. Underprivileged kids have to work for everything they have.

And officials are way more likely to ignore poorer black kids in favor of richer white ones.

Scheuneman said, “Regardless if one side was more wrong than the other, it takes both parties to mend that bridge and get through anything. So we want those schools to work together in moving forward in cultural competency.”

This is a bad idea.

It won’t do anything to stem the increasing tide of racism from whiter, wealthier districts directed at poorer blacker ones.

The WPIAL in 2018 held a similar hearing that Connellsville’s boys soccer team had used racial slurs against the Penn Hills team. The organization required Connellsville to train its student-athletes in racial and cultural sensitivities. Then in 2019, WPIAL held another hearing for the same Connellsville boys soccer team and Allderdice. This time both teams admitted hurling racial and anti-gay slurs at each other. Both agreed to sensitivity training.

These sorts of trainings are not in themselves enough to stop hate speech.

It’s true that having South Side Beaver and Steel Valley go through racial sensitivity training won’t hurt anyone.

Steel Valley students won’t suffer being forced to undergo this measure.

But the fact that they HAVE TO do this will underscore the injustice of the systems they have to live under.

They were the victims, and they got the same punishment as the oppressor.

And at South Side Beaver we can HOPE the training will do some good.

But let’s be honest – this sort of thing is only effective when those attending the training are receptive to its message.

The fact that South Side got away with this will poison everything being taught.

WPIAL is supposed to be about fair play.

They got it really wrong here.

If anyone needs this training, it’s them.

Steel Valley’s Statement:

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