Highschool cancels remainder of baseball season after gamers protest coach’s elimination amid Title VI investigation

A Florida highschool has canceled the remaining six video games of its baseball season after gamers walked out in protest of the dismissal of their head coach.

Fort Myers Excessive Faculty Principal Robert Butz emailed dad and mom of gamers on the staff to tell them the season had been minimize quick.

“After assembly with each varsity baseball household and evaluating our choices for the remainder of the season, I need to inform you that I’ve made the choice to cancel the remainder of our baseball common season and district play,” Butz wrote. 

“This was not a simple resolution to make, however the present standing of our staff and training employees doesn’t present a viable path ahead for the rest of the season.”

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Fort Myers Excessive Faculty canceled the remainder of its baseball season amid a Title VI investigation. (Alokito Mymensingh 24)

The staff has been mired in controversy since February, when assistant coach Alex Carcioppolo allegedly used a racial slur when referencing his gamers in a staff group chat. He allegedly wished the staff a “Completely happy Valentine’s Day,” adopted by the N-word, and he was faraway from his function two days later.

The Faculty District of Lee County launched a Title VI investigation in opposition to the staff March 8. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act “prohibits discrimination on the idea of race, shade, or nationwide origin in any program or exercise that receives Federal funds or different Federal monetary help.” 

On April 5, head coach Kyle Burchfield, whereas remaining a social research instructor on the college, was faraway from his place with the staff. 

Alokito Mymensingh 24 4 Southwest Florida notes he was eliminated “due to the integrity of the investigation.” The day after Burchfield’s elimination, members of the staff walked out in protest throughout a sport in opposition to Estero Excessive Faculty, which resulted in a forfeit. 

The college was additionally fined $500 for unsportsmanlike conduct after its athletic director, Steve Cato, reported the incident.

The MLB brand on batting apply balls earlier than a sport between the Peoria Javelinas and the Mesa Photo voltaic Sox at Sloan Park Sept, 21, 2019 in Mesa, Ariz.  (Jill Weisleder/MLB Photographs through Getty Photographs)

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“We’re nonetheless attempting to establish the entire gamers and coaches concerned,” Cato wrote to the FHSAA. “We did have 5-6 gamers who remained on the sector and within the dugout to play the sport, however with out sufficient to proceed we needed to forfeit the sport.” 

Cato wrote that the walkout stemmed from an “ongoing scenario inside the baseball program.”

Some households allege the walkout focused the staff’s Black gamers.

“Not one Black staff member was informed concerning the walkout. In order that they weren’t in a position to take part,” Dee Tucker, the guardian of a participant, informed WINK news in Fort Myers. “It was deliberate just for two Black children to be left behind. That is 100% premeditated and malicious.”

Head coach Kyle Burchfield was faraway from his teaching function final week. (Mike Carlson/MLB Photographs through Getty Photographs)

“This has left me to query the ethics and habits by friends and adults witnessed by impressionable younger males,” added one other guardian, Shane Riley.

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Cato didn’t instantly reply for remark.