Fans at Old Lyme High School are being called out for alleged racist behavior during a CIAC boys basketball tournament game on Tuesday night, a claim the district said it is investigating.
Two people who were present at the game have alleged that students were calling Hartford Public boys basketball players the “N-word” and making monkey noises and gestures at the Hartford Public cheerleaders during their Division V second-round game..
Emily Bjornberg, an Old Lyme High School graduate who lived in Lyme for over 30 years, was at the game and said was shocked by the alleged behavior of the fans.
“There were exchanges between the Old Lyme teenagers sitting behind the team and the Hartford cheerleaders,” Bjornberg claimed. “The Old Lyme (fans) were making (gestures) like they were monkeys at the Hartford cheerleaders.
“At the end of the game, everybody files out the same door on one side. I sort of physically parked myself between the two sets of teenagers because it felt like, ‘Oh God, what’s going to happen?’ The Old Lyme kids filed out past the Hartford cheerleaders who stood there and the Old Lyme kids kept doing it as they were walking past the cheerleaders — looking over and winking and smiling and making monkey gestures. It was awful.”
Hartford Public boys basketball coach Leo Ramirez claimed that he heard fans calling his players the “N-word.”
“They were making fun of my team, the cheerleaders,” Ramirez said. “It wasn’t a pretty sight. It was tough. It was during the whole game. But credit to the kids and the cheerleaders, they were there for one mission and one mission only, they were trying to get to the next round.”
Old Lyme, last year’s Division V state champion, won the second-round tournament game, 63-47. Old Lyme is the No. 3 seed and Hartford Public the 14th seed. Old Lyme won Thursday night’s CIAC state tournament quarterfinal game and will play in the Div. V semifinal game against Grasso Tech on Monday for a chance to return to the championship game at Mohegan Sun Arena.
“We are aware of a singular allegation of inappropriate behavior at a basketball game earlier this week,” Old Lyme Superintendent of Schools Ian Neviaser said in an email. “The Lyme-Old Lyme Schools do not tolerate misbehavior or mistreatment of others in any of our programs. We are working closely with the Hartford Public Schools to determine the validity of this allegation, and should a determination be made that any inappropriate or unsportsmanlike activity took place, we will take immediate and appropriate action to address that behavior.”
Hartford Public Principal Elvis Minga did not respond to multiple emails regarding the matter. Pedro Zayas, the public information officer for the Hartford Public School district, said the school system had no comment.
On the Hartford Dwellers Facebook page, Hartford Board of Education member Shonta Browdy posted: “During last night’s second round of the CIAC Harford Public High School Boys basketball tournament in Old Lyme. During and after the game, there were racial slurs directed at our cheerleading team and players.”
Browdy could not be reached for comment.
Bjornberg said she sent an email to Minga about the situation, saying “At the end of the game, despite being up by 20 points, the OL kids started to get rowdy. They were still chanting things like ‘Aiiirrr ballll’ and ‘You can’t do that!’ at the Hartford players. Then they started to do monkey signals directly at the Hartford cheerleaders. They pulled on their ears and stuck their tongues into their lips to make a ‘monkey face’ and they scratched under their arms like monkeys. This started slowly but caught on once a few more Old Lyme kids realized what was going on and wanted to join the taunting. I would say that most of the monkey signals I saw were toward the end of the game in the fourth quarter. The cheerleaders mostly did not seem to know how to react, so they kept cheering.”
Bjornberg called Neviaser the next day but said “he seemed to believe I was the only person complaining.”
“This should be a teachable moment for the kids,” she wrote in the email.
Ramirez said the alleged taunting was confined to the stands and none of the Old Lyme players said anything to his players during the game.
“From what I gathered, none of their players said anything but the crowd did say some nasty stuff,” Ramirez said. “I told my players before the game to prepare themselves, it’s going to get a little nasty. I didn’t think it was going to get to the ‘N-word’ part.”
The Courant reached out to CIAC executive director Glenn Lungarini for comment but did not get a response in time for the publication.