In July of 2006, after a concerted and what seemed to some to
be an unfair and racist assault by the Seattle
Times on the Chief Sealth’s girls’ basketball team, the Seattle School
District stripped the school of its two recent state championship titles.
Apparently complaints from all-white girls’ teams upset about being beaten by an
all-black team, and “inside” information from the parents of girls on the
Sealth team unhappy that their “superstar” kids were not getting the playing
time they were “promised,” gave fuel to the Times’
scandal-mongering, which determined that players were “recruited” from outside
the neighborhood where they were scheduled
to attend school.
Many people noted the hypocrisy of the Times and the district’s position. Private and prep schools were
allowed to “recruit” players from anywhere they wished. Other schools who
prided themselves on having top-flight sports programs no doubt were guilty of
the same thing as Chief Sealth—only they did not have unhappy, vengeful parents.
One person who claimed to have “inside” information on the Bellevue’s
nationally-ranked high school football team told me that he knew of at least
one star player—a running back—who was supplied an empty apartment room in
which he made an occasional visit to make his “residence” there “official,”
except that he actually lived outside of Bellevue.
Now comes another Times
“investigation,” which revealed that Microsoft billionaire Steve Ballmer—who
dashed hopes of a return of the NBA to Seattle anytime soon by his purchase of
the Los Angeles Clippers, contingent on his not moving the team—used his money
and influence turn the fortunes of the perennially awful basketball team of the
prep school his children attended, Lakeside High School. The school has a
gigantic endowment of $190 million, which should be proof to everyone the
imbalance in resources between public schools and the private schools that the
well-off and rich send their kids to.
Lakeside was better known for its academics rather than its
sports accomplishments, yet its basketball team went from two wins in 2008 to
an overtime loss in the state championship game last year. How did it accomplish
this? According to the Times, “Ballmer
and his allies at Lakeside attracted basketball talent to the wealthy school
and aided them with a series of questionable tactics that included anew
basketball-focused nonprofit, cash for a coach, an unusual admissions process
and weak enforcement of academic standards. One star player stayed at a $6
million mansion as he shuffled through three years of an academic schedule that
almost ensured he wouldn’t get a Lakeside diploma.”
Am I reading something between the lines here? Is the Times insinuating another racial angle?
Oh, I wouldn’t dream of accusing a newspaper that demonizes Latino immigrants
of “racism.” Black players of “questionable” academics were brought in,
according to the Times, to ostensibly
“diversify” the school, but in fact to improve the basketball team’s
performance. I would agree that there is something not kosher about this, but
the real question is whether it is illegal—and if it is not, why not?
After all, the unfair advantage of private schools in
getting any players they wanted regardless of where they lived was at the heart
of what many viewed as the “unfair” and racist
targeting of Chief Sealth, merely
because they had the bad manners to win a couple of championships. Thus the Times’ “expose” is essentially
valueless, save as another example of its hypocrisy; if white students with
good academics had been the beneficiaries of questionable “recruitment,” there
would be no “story.”
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