Following the decision to vacate the Coronado High School basketball team’s regional championship after a tortilla-throwing incident, the NAACP San Diego Branch is calling on officials to re-examine a similar incident.
On the day Cathedral Catholic and Lincoln High played each other in April, players and coaches at Lincoln High learned a Cathedral player for the private school shared social media posts showing someone wearing a shirt that read “Catholics vs. Convicts III.”
Another post showed Cathedral players making a gang sign.
Francine Maxwell, president of the NAACP San Diego Branch called the situation “a very similar incident.”
“The racist message conveyed by the Cathedral Catholic player was as offensive as the tortilla incident at Coronado High School,” she said.
The Cathedral Catholic shirts reference a controversial slogan and shirt made by fans of Notre Dame University before they played powerhouse rivals University of Miami in 1988.
The San Diego City Conference suspended Cathedral Catholic High’s football coach for two games and placed the team on probation for two years.
Maxwell is calling on the CIF to reopen investigations into the incident.
“We seek equity for the Lincoln community by requesting that the CIF and conference reconsider the sanctions for Cathedral Catholic High School in light of the appropriate sanctions imposed on Coronado High School,” Maxwell said.
After Orange Glen’s predominantly Latino team lost, 60-57, in overtime to the largely white Coronado High team on June 19, some members of the crowd threw tortillas at Orange Glen players.
The California Interscholastic Federation stripped Coronado High of its Division 4-A championship on Tuesday and imposed a series of other sanctions, some that continue through the 2024 school year.
Maxwell and the local NAACP called on the CIF to suspend Cathedral High School from CIF playoffs, suspend the players involved for the upcoming season and require said players to do community service for the Lincoln community.
