The semi-state tournament game, played March 1, 2014, pitted Indiana’s top two high school girls basketball teams against each other, both vying for a spot in the state finals. Lawrence North, the No. 2 team out of Indianapolis, was made up of all black players. Bedford North Lawrence, the No. 1 team and defending state champion, was predominately white and playing on its home court, cheered on by thousands of white fans from their small town.
Bedford won in overtime and went on to claim its second straight state championship. But its victory was clouded by the shameful behavior of the fans.
Lawrence North filed a complaint with the Indiana High School Athletic Association, alleging “systematic racism.” It wasn’t just the racial insults from the Bedford fans. Lawrence North was dismayed that the adults who were supposed to be in charge had allowed the debacle to take place, especially when the visiting team had requested more than a week before that the game be moved to a neutral site. The complaint pointed out that an IHSAA assistant commissioner had attended the game and failed to intervene, even with the boys dressed as gorillas.
“Through her lack of actions, this behavior was seen as acceptable,” wrote Lawrence North Principal Brett Crousore.
The IHSAA promised an investigation and, months later, issued its decision. The commission had not interviewed any students from either school. Instead the IHSAA said it could not identify a particular student or group that had made the “alleged” slurs.
The commission did not issue sanctions, nor did it require Bedford to apologize. But it did decide to move this year’s semi-state game from Bedford to a neutral court in Jeffersonville, Ind. It also amended language on the back of tournament programs to remind fans to respect people of all backgrounds and create a welcoming ?environment for opponents.
The intent, the IHSAA said, was to encourage fans to be more “sportsmanlike.”
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Another season is underway, and the girls from Lawrence North are back on the court. Whatever lessons they drew from their treatment in Bedford and at the IHSAA, they refuse to be defeated — literally.
More than halfway through the season, the Wildcats were 17-0 and ranked No. 2 in the state. Nobody needed to remind them that Bedford was No. 1, also undefeated, or that the two teams could soon face off again in this year’s ?tournament.
Saturday afternoon, Lawrence North played North Central, an Indianapolis ?rival.
Early in the game, with Lawrence North trailing 10-6, Coach Chris Giffin called timeout.
“What’s wrong, girls?” he said, “What is it going to take to get us to wake up?”
The girls stayed silent, listening and nodding.
Nearby, Vnemina Cooper watched her daughter, Lamina, intently from the stands.
Lamina, a senior guard, had signed to play at Purdue next school year.
The atmosphere at North Central was loud and infectious, but nothing compared to the thousands of roaring ?Bedford basketball fans.
Cooper was at the Bedford game last March. She’d anticipated jeers and shouting and raucousness.
Concentrate on yourself, she’d told her daughter before the game. Focus on your team and what it is you’re trying to accomplish. The people in the stands weren’t a part of this equation.
While Cooper said she was unnerved by what she witnessed in Bedford, she also wasn’t entirely surprised.
“I understood the climate going into there,” she said.
That evening in Bedford, before the game, the girls chose not to mention the slurs to their coach. To do so would detract from his and their focus on the game. Before they returned to the court for tipoff, the team gathered to recite the Lord’s Prayer.
“Last year was a rough time during semi-state,” Cooper said. “There’s many things that happened during the game that were not appropriate. It was a game that we lost, and it was heartbreaking.”
Following the game, Cooper chose her words carefully to her daughter.
It’s a matter of iron focus, she said.
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IHSAA Commissioner Bobby Cox maintains that the investigation and ?“language amendment” was effective.
Before the semi-state contest, three white IHSAA officials were assigned to the game. Lawrence North Principal Crousore asked that at least one person of color be appointed to a post. The organization denied Crousore’s request.
To appoint or assign these positions based on race is a discriminatory act in itself, Cox said.
Each of the three officials selected for the semi-state game were ranked among the top 20 in the state, Cox said. Whether or not a person of color existed in those same standings is not known.
“I don’t care what color the official (is),” he added. “If they’re the highest-rated official, they’re going to get the assignment.”
What the principal and commissioner didn’t know in March was that the denial of this request was the preface to the protracted investigation involving school administrators, IHSAA officials, the Great Lakes Equity Center and the Department of Justice.
The parties in the investigation met three times.
“Everybody’s intent was to get some common ground and discuss the issue and reach a resolution,” Cox said.
“The fact of the matter is that high school basketball in an enclosed environment is a very intense atmosphere,” he said. “But it needs to be a positive intensity.”
He said everyone was trying to do the right thing and move on.
“I can’t worry about the detractors.”
Nobody disputes that offensive language was hurled at players and students that day. At the IHSAA, the behavior at Bedford was chalked up to game-day trash talk.
Most of it, Cox said, is “pretty benign.”
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What happened at the Bedford game was anything but benign.
In the complaint to the IHSAA board of directors, Principal Crousore talked about the students who reported racial slurs and another who was called “nigger” in the concessions line. He also called out the police officer who stood by as a student threw a soda bottle at Lawrence North’s bus, filled with the girls basketball team.
The tweets seemed bottomless.
“I wonder how this would have gone if we did the gangster theme hahaha,” one Bedford student tweeted after the game.
“I’m surprised they even have internet connection in that fucking hick town. Rednecks.”
“Personally I was offended there wasn’t a white girl on that team ... who’s racist now?!” tweeted another.
Blake Williams, then a senior, was among the Lawrence North crowd who had taken a fan bus down to the game. He remembered the feeling of utter disbelief as the boys in the gorilla suits cheered opposite of his classmates. It was learned in the days after the game that the suits had been worn on several occasions, and that the students complied when asked to remove them. The fan section that night had been safari-themed.
“You definitely heard about for the weeks afterward. You knew the principal was working with the sports administration to get something done about it,” Williams said. “You could definitely see that he was stressed out because of it.”
But after the initial uproar, things fell quiet.
Williams said that the IHSAA’s response was a slap on the wrist. As the school year progressed and as the silence lingered, he said, it was as if the issue had simply disappeared.
“A lot of (students) just wanted some resolution,” Williams said. “It just kind of faded.”
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The Indiana State Conference of the NAACP also filed a complaint with the IHSAA, asking that they be notified of the IHSAA’s findings. They never received a response, said Barbara Bolling Williams, president of the conference.
The silence of the IHSAA spoke volumes to Bolling Williams. If integrity is absent at any point in the game, she said, then it has not been a true contest.
The lack of response combined with the closed-door nature of the investigation perpetuated a systematic failure, Bolling Williams said. Meanwhile, a teachable ?moment passed.
This group, she said, had failed the very people it was designed to guide: its ?students.
“Now is when you teach them lessons,” she said.
***
In the loud gym at North Central, Cooper shouted and cheered as her daughter Lamina raced up the court.
This was a team widely hailed for its strong defense, for its ability to communicate. They’re disciplined, Cooper said, and they have a lot of speed and good ?footwork.
In the months since the ugliness at Bedford, she said, stepping outside of the situation allowed them to gain perspective. It allowed Cooper to reinforce that whatever happens in the stands — no matter how loud or nasty — stays in the stands. Lamina and her team had a job to do.
“All I can focus on is teaching my daughter what she can expect going into the world,” Cooper said.
The game buzzer sounded — 63-40, another win. That made the team 18-0.
