Wilcox High saga: What could happen to the football team?

SANTA CLARA — It had been two dream seasons for the Wilcox High School football program. Fourteen wins last year, highlighted by league, regional and state championships. Six wins and sitting in first place in the league standings thus far this season.

Even in defeat, Wilcox garnered praise. The Chargers were good enough to build a 17-point lead on the road against East Bay powerhouse Pittsburg a few weeks ago before losing by four.

But in the span of one weekend, the good vibes got turned upside down.

Allegations last week that members of the football team chanted homophobic slurs at a male freshman on the school’s cheerleading team led to a change.org petition in support of the cheerleader that has collected more than 8,900 signatures as of Saturday morning. The Santa Clara Unified School District asked the Santa Clara Police Department to investigate.

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The school performed its own investigation and told this news organization Thursday night in a vague statement that discipline was doled out, ranging between removal from athletics to suspension from school.

But sources in the football community wonder if more punishment is forthcoming. They ask whether the school plans to forfeit games or pull the plug on the season entirely.

The Santa Clara PD said it expects to complete its inquiry early next week.

One administrator, who asked not to be identified, said the district is in a no-win situation now, having failed to get in front of the story before it erupted last weekend.

If the district chooses to take more disciplinary action, here are possible ways that it could go and the potential fallout:

Forfeit final two regular-season games

On the surface, this seems like a reasonable and stiff penalty. Wilcox is scheduled to travel to crosstown rival Santa Clara next Friday before closing out the regular season at home Nov. 8 against Fremont-Sunnyvale. The Chargers are heavily favored to win both games, so losses seemingly would sting.

Or would they?

With the forfeits, Wilcox would finish the regular season with a 6-4 record. It would not win the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza Division championship.

But in the Central Coast Section’s new competitive-equity playoff format, the Chargers would likely drop from Division I to Division II or Division III — and that’s a good thing for them.

No, make that a great thing.

Instead of battling Valley Christian, Serra and Menlo-Atherton for the Division I championship, Wilcox’s path to a section championship and regional berth would be made easier. The Chargers would win by getting punished.

Conversely, the forfeits would hurt teams such as Los Gatos, which lost to Wilcox during the season but would potentially finish ahead of the Chargers in the league standings and likely end up in the powerhouse playoff bracket.

Palo Alto coach Nelson Gifford scoffed at that possibility.

“I know Paul Rosa is not out there trying to game the system and seeing if he can forfeit games to get into a lower seed,” Gifford said about the Wilcox coach before the Vikings lost to Los Gatos on Friday night.

Santa Clara coach Burt Codera said he expects the Wilcox game to be played as scheduled next week.

“We’re going to approach it like any other week,” Codera said after his team’s 28-7 loss at Milpitas on Friday. “We’re crosstown schools. We know a lot of people over there. I hope that some of the stuff we’re hearing is not true. I am really hoping for the best for those guys, that they figure their situation out and we get to play on Friday.”

Asked if he’d be shocked if they did not play, Codera added, “I’d be pretty shocked.”

Cancel the season

This might seem extreme and maybe it is. We do not know how many players were involved in the alleged taunts — or if coaches were also implicated in the aftermath.

But there is a precedent.

Just Google “forfeit football season and slurs.”

A Massachusetts high school team forfeited the remainder of its football season in 2013 after a racial slur was spray-painted at the home of a player.

Gilroy canceled the rest of its football season this fall in the aftermath of allegations that a player was sexually assaulted by teammates in the locker room, though in that case the school district cited the fact that most players had quit as the reason for cancellation.

If Wilcox canceled its season, it might satisfy those angered by the homophobic allegations.

But would it be fair to players who were not involved?

“Obviously, I don’t know where the truth lies; I’m not party or privy to any of that stuff,” Los Gatos coach Mark Krail said. “But I know it’s hard on the coaches. It’s hard on the players. I know these kids. They work super hard and the coaches do, too. Somebody did something to get them where they are, and it just takes away from a great team and a great season that they’ve had. Their coaches are fine men.”

Suspend the guilty players

The school might have already done this. The news release Thursday said its investigation was complete and removal from athletics was among the disciplinary actions.

But there were no more details.

“Unfortunately, student privacy rights prevent us from being more specific,” spokeswoman Jennifer Dericco said.

Given the severity of the allegations, it seems as if any suspension would have to extend to the playoffs to prevent an uproar from an outraged community.

Stay status quo

It is highly doubtful that the “removal from athletics” portion of the district’s news release did not include football players.

So the team is dealing with some disciplinary action.

How much, though, is the question the public wants to know.

“We don’t need to know names,” Chris Anderson, a youth football coach in Monterey County, wrote Friday on Twitter. But “We DEMAND some form of explanation.”

Anderson has a son who is a male cheerleader and another son who is a star high school football player.

No matter what happens, valuable lessons can be learned from this saga.

“Obviously as a community member and a league member, it reminds me of how important it is to teach citizenship, to teach respect, to teach inclusion, and we always have to be vigilant,” Gifford said.

The Bay Area News Group’s Elliott Almond and Phil Jensen contributed to this report.