Overland High School administrators told a group of Mullen High School students Tuesday about the impact that racially tinged remarks they hurled at a basketball game had on the black Overland players.
After the meeting at Mullen, principals for the two schools said they believe the students now realize how insensitive and hurtful the remarks were.
“I thought it was important for us to tell the students at Mullen how we felt and to find out how they felt,” Overland principal Jana Frieler said. “I don’t think they understood how insensitive it was, but I do think they understood” they were chanting racial slurs.
The group of about 37 Mullen students will write apologies to the Overland team and may meet with them sometime in the future. Not all of the students engaged in the harassment, but none tried to stop it.
News media were barred from the 40-minute meeting at Mullen. Overland basketball coach Ron Garcia y Ortiz and other personnel who attended declined to comment.
The Overland personnel said Mullen students come across as arrogant, said Mullen principal Greg Gotchey. Overland is an Aurora public high school with a student body that is 38 percent African-American, 34 percent white and 22 percent Latino. Mullen is a private Catholic school. The student body is 75 percent white, 3.9 percent black and 11.3 percent Latino.
The Mullen students chanted “Buckwheat” and other terms in unison as African-American Overland students stepped to the foul line during last Wednesday’s game.
Gotchey said he believes his students didn’t understand that they were saying things that would be construed as racist.
The kids chanting “Buckwheat” were referring to the hairstyle of one of the Overland players.
“Their intention was to poke fun at somebody’s hairstyle to get them off of their game,” Gotchey said.
The player wore a hairstyle similar to that worn by a black child character in the “Little Rascals” comedies of the 1930s and ’40s.
The Buckwheat character is widely considered a demeaning racial stereotype.
On Friday, Gotchey held a meeting with all of the Catholic school’s students to talk about the incident. The mood was “somber,” he said.
The Colorado High School Activities Association, which oversees high school athletics in the state, considers the incident serious, said Bert Borgmann, association assistant commissioner.
But he said he thought the schools were handling it well by using the incident to teach students about racial intolerance.
The Denver Post reported last week that CHSAA officials were at the game. The report was based on information from Cherry Creek School District spokeswoman Tustin Amole. She said Tuesday that she had been mistaken.
At the game, Gotchey told the Mullen students to stop when he heard the remarks. When the chants continued, he went back to the section where they were sitting and threatened them with suspension.
He said he would have taken a stronger stance had he thought the chants were racially motivated. In the future, students who engage in such behavior will be immediately ejected.
Borgmann said Gotchey missed a chance to teach the teens that their behavior was inappropriate by not making them leave the game.
Gotchey requested the meeting with Overland.
Black community activist Alvertis Simmons came to Mullen and wanted to attend the meeting. Gotchey told him it was closed to the public.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
