Christian High School of El Cajon will face no formal penalties for forfeiting a girls volleyball game in September on the basis of a rumor of an LGBT player on the opposing team from La Mesa.
San Diego CIF Commissioner Joe Heinz on Thursday said his office met with Christian High leaders about the Sept. 12 varsity forfeit to Helix Charter High School.
“The school’s response to this matter and the corrective steps taken were addressed in an expeditious and appropriate manner,” Heinz told Times of San Diego. “The CIF San Diego Section will continue to work with Christian High School to implement additional measures and safeguards to ensure this type of infraction does not occur again.”
As a result of the talks, CIF chief Heinz said Christian High School would “continue to be an active member of the CIF San Diego Section.”
But according to email sent three days after the incident, Christian Unified Schools of San Diego Superintendent Bob Ruhlman said his district “has very clear doctrinal and theological convictions based in our Christian faith and Biblical worldview of God’s creation order.”
Ruhlman’s email, produced by CIF after a Public Records Act request, continued: “Our statement of faith is clear and we seek to operate on the basis of consistency and integrity with our faith convictions. This includes operating our programs on the basis of this conviction.”
He explained how the forfeit came about.
“On the morning of September 12,” Ruhlman said, “we were given information about one of the student-athletes from Helix Charter School that turned out to be inaccurate.”
He said that with limited access to school district president David Jeremiah — apparently due to illness — “we faced communications issues that resulted in the forfeiture.”
He said his school has corrected the issues and “forfeiture in these instances is not consistent with CUSSD policy.”
In his Sept. 15 response to CIF queries, Ruhlman said: “As longtime members of the California Interscholastic Federation, we look forward to finding a path forward as we seek to balance our faith, our school mission and our responsibilities as members of the CIF. I want to be clear, we intend to be cooperative members of the association where generations of our students have enjoyed the full richness of interscholastic competition.”
But it remains unclear what exactly triggered the Christian forfeit, which also led to the cancellation of freshman and junior varsity matches at Christian that day.
At first, Times of San Diego was told it was because of a lesbian player on the La Mesa school’s team. Later, Helix athletic director Damon Chase told CIF in email: “We believe that Christian H.S. student-athletes, admin … and parents assumed that we have a transgender student on our team. We do not have a transgender student-athlete on our volleyball team and it should not matter if we did.”
Superintendent Ruhlman and Christian High athletic director Jeff Briggs did not respond to my latest queries.
Also vague are what “corrective steps” and “additional measures and safeguards” are being taken by Christian High. CIF didn’t specify.
In a text message exchange the day of the forfeit, Helix volleyball coach Zoe Varela-Beltz told Chase that Christian High was “so out of line” and was sure that the school broke “a slew of ethics and rules they must subscribe to for membership into CIF.”
The day after the canceled games, Helix executive director Kevin Osborn wrote Christian High officials that rumors related about the cancellations necessitated a gym gathering of student-athletes “to address the matter in support of our students’ social-emotional well being.”
In a “NOTICE OF NONDISCRIMINATORY POLICY AS TO STUDENTS,” the school’s website says it “admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.”
The early forfeit didn’t seem to trouble the Helix Highlanders, however.
The varsity volleyballers, top-seeded in the San Diego section Division II tournament and the defending champions, made it one game short of Friday night’s title game. On Halloween night, Helix fell to the Our Lady of Peace Pilots 3 games to 2 in the semifinals.
The Christian High Patriots, also Division II, finished their season with a 27-8 win-loss record and a No. 3 seed but lost to Mt. Carmel in the first round of the playoffs.
The Christian High School student newspaper celebrated the season but didn’t mention the forfeit.
“Thanks to exceptional leadership and their faith in Christ, one could argue that it was one of their best seasons yet!” said the Genesis story online. It said one of its captains, senior Jessie Vincent, described the team as “competitive, fun, and hardworking,” despite the many challenges they faced.
“I love being able to play at such a competitive level while also growing in my faith,” Vincent told the paper. “We share a special connection that most teams don’t have.”
