De La Salle crowd accused of racism at playoff soccer match against Sanger

Fans of a Bay Area Catholic all-boys school have been accused of making racist remarks against the parents and players of an opposing team during a Northern California regional boys soccer game.

Administrators of De La Salle High School in Concord are now investigating the allegations, following complaints by parents and the coach of the boys soccer team at Sanger High School, which is located just east of Fresno and has a student body that is about 73% Latino.

Throughout the game, De La Salle fans allegedly called Sanger players “Edgar” and “Juan,” used an anti-Latino racial slur and said that the players “didn’t belong on the field because they don’t speak English,” according to Alex Gutierrez, head boys soccer coach for Sanger.

Gutierrez said that most of his players initially brushed off those comments as “trash talk” but became alarmed when they heard about other racially fueled comments directed at their parents in the stands.

According to Gutierrez, after the game ended, a man walked out of the press box and told Sanger fans, among other remarks, that “this is America. You need to learn English.”

“It’s very ugly and very difficult,” Gutierrez said. “I think the sentiment for our boys is that people really weren’t afraid to say those things out loud, and that’s what’s really troubling for us.”

De La Salle beat Sanger 4-3 on March 1 and then lost at Watsonville on penalty kicks in the semifinals on March 3. About one in five students at De La Salle are Latino, including some of whom play on the soccer team, according to the school’s website.

In a statement Monday morning, De La Salle president David Holquin said that school administrators had conducted nearly two dozen interviews and were “unable to corroborate” the allegations but that they are continuing to investigate the matter.

“The alleged comments are entirely inappropriate and do not keep with our school standards, expectations, and our mission as a Lasallian Catholic school,” he continued in the statement. “We take these allegations seriously. Once aware, we immediately launched an investigation into the matter.”

Other Sanger fans took to social media to denounce comments from De La Salle fans and call for the Concord school to take immediate action to prevent such behavior in the future.

Sanger parent Chris Martin told the ABC station in Fresno that a conversation he had before the game with someone from De La Salle who worked the press box made him uncomfortable even before the game began. Gutierrez said he thought this was the same man who made the postgame comment.

“The sense I kept getting from him is that he kept referring to the color of the tan, like, ‘Oh it must be very hot out there, everyone I am seeing has a tan,'” Martin said.

In addition to De La Salle’s investigation, Gutierrez said that he’s pushing the California Interscholastic Federation — the state’s governing body for high school sports — to conduct its own independent review of the situation. CIF referred questions about the incident to the schools involved.

“This wasn’t just a one-off event that happened at De La Salle High School,” Gutierrez said. “These events have been happening at sporting events across California, so we want the CIF to be involved and to create some accountability and discipline when these things happen — for all schools.”

Last October, De La Salle disciplined two students who were photographed re-enacting the May 2020 murder of George Floyd. In 2019, a teacher reportedly used the ‘N-word’ during class, which administrators acknowledged at the time and said “was clearly regrettable,” according to KTVU.

The latest issue at the boys’ soccer game was one of two alleged acts of racism to take place in the past week at regional soccer matches in Northern California, rattling Fresno-area schools.

In the NorCal Division I girls final Saturday night in the Sacramento area, players on the Buchanan (Clovis) High team were subject to what their coach called “blatantly racist” heckling when the match against Oak Ridge of El Dorado Hills went to penalty kicks.

According to video footage reviewed by the Sacramento Bee, when a Latina player stepped up to shoot for Buchanan, someone in the stands could be heard barking loudly like a dog. Then when it was a Black player’s turn to shoot, someone in the stands could be heard making gorilla noises.

Oak Ridge is investigating the incident, as well as CIF.

“When a quiet stadium is suddenly filled with gorilla noises made toward an African-American student, I don’t know that you get any more blatantly racist,” Buchanan coach Jasara Gillette told the Bee. “It changed the atmosphere of everything. My players after that moment were visibly emotional. I’ve never experienced anything like that.”

Last June, Coronado was stripped of its Southern California Division 4-A regional basketball championship after members of the team celebrated by throwing tortillas in the direction of Orange Glen’s bench. Orange Glen is predominantly Latino.

“The CIF State Executive Director reiterates that discriminatory and racially insensitive behaviors toward an opponent contravene the principles of education-based athletics,” the CIF said in a statement at the time. “In this instance, there is no doubt the act of throwing tortillas at a predominantly Latino team is unacceptable and warrants sanctions.”