A high school basketball team in Maine is giving up its chance to be a state champion, and withdrawing from the Maine Principals' Association basketball league, citing unfair officiating and racist comments from spectators.
The Hyde Private Boarding School in Bath, Maine has announced that the boys basketball team will play in the New England Private School League instead.
According to Head of School Laura Gauld, the team would have inappropriate, judgmental, and racist comments said to them from adult spectators at basketball games.
"When you see comments made by adults and then you see the adults around them, you see a lack of outrage, you realize that: wait a minute, we've got to all work together on this," said Gauld.
She said the racist comments were only part of the reason for leaving the league. Gauld said for years, the school has felt that the officiating has been unfair to them.
Maine Principals' Association Executive Director Dick Durost denies that the officials were unfair, and said Hyde never reported the racial comments they heard.
"Four months later, there's not much we can do, than to assure people that in all of our events we are monitoring those things and if we hear them, we will deal with them," said Durost.
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The Hyde girls basketball team still plans to play in the MPA league.
