PIAA meeting: Friday, July 23

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Here are the sports spring venues for the next four years:

Boys Team Tennis: Hershey Racquet Club
Boys Singles and Doubles Tennis: Hershey Racquet Club
Track and Field: Seth Grove Stadium, Shippensburg University
Boys Volleyball: Will reconvene Volleyball Steering Committee to suggest bringing all 32 qualifiers into Multi-Sport, but might go to rec Hall. Will definitely be at Penn State, but needs some tweaking
Girls Spring Soccer: Hersheypark Stadium
Boys and Girls Lacrosse: Hersheypark Stadium (see note below)
Softball: Nittany Lion Softball Park, Penn State
Baseball: Medlar Field at Lubrano Park, Penn State

Girls Spring Soccer will be played the same day as girls lacrosse as a mullti-sport doubleheader. Boys lacrosse will be played the following day. In two years, lacrosse will be bid out again.
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UPDATE: Here’s the decision by the Board on the Math, Civics and Science hearing.

Norm Long of Pa. School Boards moves to reinforce pre-game procedures. Passes unanimously. Big deal.

District 9 chairman Jim Manners drops the bomb. Moves that MCSCS coach Danny Jackson lost control of his team and is to be censured and disciplined (placed on probabtion). Passes unaninamously.

Board member Hal Griffiths moves that MCSCS fans were unruly.

District 3 chairman Sam Elias moves that MCSCS Veronica Joyner cast PIAA in an unfair light with unproven allegations of racial bias and Joyner should be censured. Passes unanimously.

No reaction from MCSCS attendees, who leave the boardroom quietly.

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If you thought this morning’s hearing into allegations by Math, Civics and Science Charter School of Philadelphia (MCSCS) was going to be a circus, you’re right. And it hasn’t started yet.

MCSCS officials have claimed that PIAA basketball officials working the school’s playoff game with Reading Central Catholic were guilty of racial bias leading to lopsided calls in Central Catholic’s 85-53 Class A boys quarterfinal triumph at Coatesville Area High School. The school’s founder and chief administrative officer, Veronica Joyner, brought the charges after speaking with school officials following the 32-point loss.

A story on the matter from the Philadelphia Daily News is here.

Why is it a circus already? MCSCS brought what has to be a record 13 people to the hearing on a coach bus.

The hearing has begun.

Going through introductions right now. Might take longer than the hearing itself.

PIAA executive director Brad Cashman is noting that MCSCS has complained about PIAA officiating in the post-season for two straight years. The school complained in 2009 following its loss to Greenwood.

All’s low-key for the moment.

OK, Veronica Joyner is speaking now.

Joyner is reiterating her list of complaints, including a complaint that a MCSCS was called a “nigga.” Also that a MCSCS player suffered a “busted lip” but the game was not stopped to provide medical treatment.

MCSCS athletic director Lonnie Diggs charges that there was no pre-game meeting. Game manager Jim Donato of Coatesville said that the meeting was held.

Game official Steve Lucas said the meeting was held and included a MCSCS team player and a team representative. Joyner said all three coaches said there was no meeting. DiDonato says, “That is not true. I distinctly remember a meeting at midcourt.”

The athletic secretary from Reading Central Catholic said she was at the meeting.

PIAA president Rod Stone says this a pretty big disagreement and that this “will be a credibility decision by these people (PIAA board) around the table.”

MCSCS AD Diggs is claiming that fans can walk off the street and that doesn’t make that persona representative of the school. Cashman says the reports show that MCSCS fans were the ones yelling obscenities. Joyner interjects: “Were they identified by color?”

PIAA in-house counsel Michael Solomon tries to pin down Diggs on whether he heard protests from the crowd. Diggs says yes. Solomon asks if he could identify the complainants. Diggs said no. Diggs said there were very few fans with a connection to MCSCS at the game.

Joyner says for the record that unruly fans could not be identified as connected with MCSCS. Donato says the unruly crowd was right behind the MCSCS bench, but did not know where they were from.

A woman who said she grew up in Coatesville and said her son played basketball said she was in the crowd. She said what happened to the MCSCS team that night was “apprehensible.” She went on to claim that the game wasn’t halted when MCSCS players were injured and that “Caucasians” in the stands were cheering the injury. She said there was a whole section of Caucasians and said if she didn’t know better, she’d have thought the game was at Villanova. Whatever that means.

This is quite a speech. She said her son, who played for MCSCS, wept on the way home not because his team lost but because they were treated unfairly.

MCSCS has just handed out a “fact sheet” detailing their position. The first bullet point is this: “Our (MCSCS) boy’s and girl’s basketball teams are forced to play in racially hostile environments.” Interesting, that word “forced.”

Another bullet point: “At the Reading Central Catholic, our basketball team was treated as second-class citizens.” That might be a fact, but it seems more like an opinion.

Joyner is back. She claims she just wants her students to be treated fairly.

But now she’s back to the game being officiated unfairly. PIAA prez Rod Stone steps in to allow the game officials to speak.

Steve Lucas (game official) describes protocol on when to stop the game for injury. He says that he did stop the game when a player suffered a bloddy lip in conflict with the MCSCS testimony.

Lucas said the seven technical fouls were called on MCSCS primarily because of abusive language and poor sportsmanship. He says it’s not the officials’ job to count the number of techs. “We don’t say, hey, we’ve called three (techs), let’s stop now.”

Official Matt Ciciarelli said he began calling technicals when players began complaining loudly.

Joyner jumps in and addresses the seven technicals. Stone asks, “Were they unwarranted?” Joyner flinches and says “A lot were”, but does not specify which were or were not.

Ciciarelli also claims there were five techs, not seven.

Official Lenny LaRosa, who said he has officiated basketball for 34 years, explains his technicals. Pretty descriptive stuff, including some salty language.

Things are starting to crack a little for MCSCS. They cannot back up the claim that they were hit with 7 techs; MCSCS Danny Jackson acknowledges the number “7″ came from newspaper reports.

MCSCS complain that Caln Twp. police were called and that Caln Twp. police were mostly white. Donato points out that Caln Twp. police were already on site because the school building proper sits in Caln Twp., not Coatesville city.

The hearing is now just shy of two hours old.

Joyner can’t keep from using the words “unfair” or “unfairly.” She seems to think this is fact. It remains an opinion, I believe.

Joyner offers up an apology if her school’s players used profane language. She acknowledges at least one player acknowledged using foul language. There is no question a player heaved the ball into the stands, precipitating the premature end of the game with 13.9 seconds left. She said these matters were addressed at the school.

We’ve basically getting to a bottom line, and the bottom line is this: MCSCS didn’t like the officials’ calls. MCSCS said that race was a factor in those calls, but has presented no evidence to prove that charge.

MCSCS coach Jackson was hit with a technical with approximately two minutes remaining, the game’s second technical, for telling a game official to “Call the game fair.” Jackson acknowledged that’s what he said. District 9 chairman James Manners asks Jackson if his players heard him say. He said they might have. Manners’ point was that the technicals that followed might have been influenced by the coach’s behavior.

The hearing has come to a conclusion, and the Board will go into executive session to deliberate.