Mendocino team, coach avoid confrontation over ‘I Can’t Breathe’ T-shirts

A Mendocino High School basketball team took the court Tuesday without their controversial “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirts protesting the deaths of people at the hands of police - and without the coach who threatened to bench any player who wore the shirts during warm-ups.

It was the latest twist in a saga that has brought international attention to a charity basketball tournament in Fort Bragg and sparked a debate about students’ rights to express their opinions during school functions.

Fort Bragg school officials last week banned the shirts from the three-day basketball tournament held this week at Fort Bragg High School. The boys team from Mendocino High was allowed to play Monday when the team accepted the decision, except for one member who chose not to play rather than comply. The girls team was disinvited from the tournament when they refused to submit to the condition.

Faced with threatened litigation and escalating controversy over the ban, the Fort Bragg school district reversed itself Monday afternoon. At least two members of the boys basketball team had indicated they planned to wear their shirts on Tuesday.

On Monday evening, the coach of the Mendocino boys team, Jim Young, told the boys they could not play if they wore their shirts during warm-ups. Late Monday night, he was overruled by the Mendocino schools superintendent.

“Given the legal order that was handed down today and due to the fact that the ban of the T-shirts was lifted, the T-shirts will be allowed to be worn without consequence at the Fort Bragg Tournament,” Superintendent Jason Morse wrote in an email sent to team members.

Young responded by notifying the school and the team he would not coach on Tuesday, Morse said.

“The school has decided that the individuals on our team may wear anything they want to the games. Call me old, but the idea of wearing a common uniform in games, including warm-ups, is as much part of the game as going to practice, traveling as a team and winning and losing together. Without the support of the school administration, I will not be able to coach the team tomorrow under these conditions,” according to an email that a member of the team said he received from Young.

Neither Young nor Assistant Coach Vincent Lee could be reached Tuesday for comment.

One member of the boys team said its decision not to wear the T-shirts on Tuesday had little, if anything, to do with Young’s decision not to coach.

Some members of the team did not know about the superintendent’s decision and had not brought their T-shirts to Tuesday’s game, said Connor Woods, the only team member who chose not to play on Monday because of the T-shirt ban. Woods played Tuesday without his T-shirt. He said he and other members who wanted to wear the shirts did not wish to make it appear that the team was split on the decision.

“It came down to team unity. We weren’t going to go and wear something different than the rest of the team,” he said.

Team members had not yet decided whether they wanted to wear the shirts on Wednesday, the final day of the tournament, Woods said Tuesday afternoon.

It also was unclear Tuesday whether the Mendocino girls team, which had been replaced in the tournament by a team from Covelo, would get a chance to play.

The American Civil Liberties Union - which has called the shirt ban illegal - has demanded that the Fort Bragg school district add a game so that the Mendocino girls can play. A decision had not been reached as of Tuesday afternoon.

The debate thrust the tournament and the two Mendocino Coast schools into the spotlight as a national dialogue, including massive protests, continues over the killings of black men by police. “I Can’t Breathe” is just one of the slogans being chanted and worn by protesters across the country, including NBA superstars LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Derrick Rose, who wore T-shirts with the phrase in pregame warm-ups earlier this month. They were the last words of Eric Garner, the New York man who died in July after a police officer put him in a chokehold.

Locally, the debate has included allegations that, in wearing the T-shirts, the Mendocino students were being insensitive to law enforcement officers still mourning the loss of Ricky Del Fiorentino, a Mendocino County sheriff’s deputy and popular wrestling coach at Fort Bragg High who was gunned down in March by an Oregon fugitive.

The Mendocino athletes don’t see it that way. They say they have great respect for local law enforcement and that many knew and admired Del Fiorentino. They say they are simply expressing their free-speech rights in joining the national debate about police violence.

Morse said he’s hoping the debate, which began on social media in mid-December and came to a head late last week when the ban was announced, has finally run its course.

“I suggest we all start focusing on basketball and the team,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Glenda Anderson at 462-6473 or glenda.anderson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MendoReporter.