I will start by saying there is a recognition from City High people that things got out of hand, and inappropriate things happened. I have heard that all sports teams were talked to by the coaches yesterday and today about what happened on the court, and how it was wrong, and not reflective of the values of City High.
This will be disjointed. There are lots of things that happened, and I've talked to several people who were there, and did personally hear things, but the time line is hard to figure out.
Hard fought game. Lampe is a driven kid. He and #14 rolled around on the floor for a loose ball, and the belief from the City parents is #14 struck Lampe in the face on purpose during this play. Seems like two hard nosed, effort kids. Lampe's 5th foul was committed on #14, and he immediately said something to the effect of, "I got you (So, acknowledged he fouled him), nice game". The Fairfield player said, "F you, mother effer, you effing pussy". At which point the shove happened. Honestly I can live with that, and the one game suspension he would have gotten. Everything beyond the shove was uncalled for, and he's going to have to deal with the ramifications.
I have uniformly heard that the game was poorly officiated. It was physical. The officials had not called a City High game from what several parents told me, and they did work the sophomore game before hand. That isn't always the practice, but some parents think there may have been a fatigue issue at work.
City High's coach, Brennan Swayzer, is not known as a hot head. I was told that after City's previous game to Monday night he was directly complimented by the officials that worked that game for his on court demeanor.
At various times during the game Fairfield players would turn to City's coach, and bench, after a made shot and yell out, "Yeah Boy"!!!. That was poorly received. Yeah, kids say that stuff to each other, but the optic of a multi-racial team being yelled at by white kids was grating. And, to yell that at the coach is troubling. Either a team issue, or, kids who are unaware of how something is received. Swayzer received a technical foul, and as one official did the actual work of making the call at the table, Swayzer was sitting back down when the other official came up and said while pointing his finger at Swayzer, "Sit down, Know your place". I know that's not what a lot of people would call overtly racist. I'll let you guys hash that out. I know it was received poorly by Swayzer, the assistants, and the black parents in particular.
At one point in time a City High mom was walking out of the gym during a break in action and she passed near one official and said, "This is the worst officiated game I've ever seen". I specifically asked if she stopped, faced the official, impeded the officials movement, or swore at him, and was told no on all accounts. The mom was outside of the gym for several minutes, came back in, the game resumed, then the official stopped play, and had the Fairfield AD remove the mom. He came into the stands, said she had to go, she asked why, and the AD said he didn't know, just that the ref said she had to go. This led to an amping up of the anger in the stands.
I was told the AD repeatedly apologized to the mom outside of the gym, and said she shouldn't have been ejected, but he had no choice. The ref demanded that she be removed from the property, which was refused, but led to more anger.
That seems like a poorly handled situation. The ref simply could have pulled the AD over and said, hey, keep an eye on her, that was inappropriate. Or, he could have just let it go. But, stopping the action, and making a display of removing a parent, was an escalation.
Now, a lot of parents have said things got too hot. John Bacon was there, but he was there as a parent. He has told people from what I have heard that he feels bad, and that he should have noticed things were going sideways, and stood up and told people to settle down. When the scuffle on the court broke out he did a good job taking action immediately.
To the statement I have heard that although it was accredited to Bacon, the AD, Degner, wrote it with input by others, including Bacon. There was a belief they had to be supportive of Swayzer because of an immediate push back by an assistant, and anger expressed by African American parents.
If you have questions I may or may not respond. Again, that's pretty disjointed, and I don't think I am recalling everything I was told.
I will repeat that a lot of people at City think things went sideways, shouldn't have, are sorry it did go sideways, and have taken corrective steps. It will be interesting to see if anyone at Fairfield sees a growth opportunity, or the referees take a moment to step back and examine things from a different perspective.