A Pittsburgh high school football coach has blasted officials from the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League for permitting white players from an opposing team to use racial slurs, specifically the N-word, against his Black players during the first half of the Class 2A first-round playoff game.
This incident is part of a concerning trend. Various high school teams have reported instances of racist trash-talking during their games by players or fans, creating an unsafe and hostile environment for Black athletes as they compete and for other spectators trying to enjoy a fair athletic contest.
Burrell High School’s coach, Shawn Liotta, has gone to the press to complain about why he was kicked off the field during his team’s game against Mohawk High School on Friday, Nov. 3.
Although officials claimed he demonstrated unsportsmanlike conduct and vulgarity, he asserts that he stood up for his students.
“I would do it again 100 times to protect our players,” he said in an interview with WPXI.
According to Liotta, he and other coaches on his staff heard the Mohawk players calling his athletes the N-word. “I was right there. We heard it. Myself and my coaches heard the slurs. Numerous players reported it to us. Kids were coming over to us to the sidelines in tears,” he said.
He said he brought the harassment to the attention of the referees, hoping they would step in and stop the racial teasing, but they did not.
“I reported it to the game officials on multiple occasions and said, ‘Please do something about it.’ Our kids reported it to the game officials on multiple occasions. They even gave them specific players that were doing it,” the coach continued to explain, but he walked out to approach them with 11 seconds left before halftime.
The coach said, “I begged them,” but they did not listen.
“I went out to try to talk to the officials about the situation again,” Liotta said. “They blew me off and said they didn’t hear it. From there, I was ejected from the football game.”
In addition to being tossed out the game ending his 2023 coaching season, he will also be suspended for the first two games of next season.
“There’s no place for racism in society. There’s certainly no place for racism in high school athletics,” the outraged coach said, according to CBS News.
Critics of Liotta say he was not valiantly protecting the civil rights of his players but used the name-calling defense because the team was losing by 20 points in the game. He denies this.
“My duty is to make sure they’re protected, to make sure this type of stuff does not occur,” Liotta said. “I don’t stand for this type of stuff. It needs to be brought to the light just because it happens far too often; it happens every week and nothing ever gets done about it.”
In September 2023, a Long Island high school was under investigation after Black youths, ranging from 5 to 11, were called racial slurs at a playground next to a football game and subjected to physical violence by teens believed to be from the school.
A month later, another predominantly Black New York high school team was forced to lose a shot at the playoffs because they fought the opposing team after their fans called them coons, monkeys, and the N-word during the game.
The game was abruptly ended despite the team with the Black players being ahead on the scoreboard. The fight also led to that team forfeiting the following game, which eliminated it from a shot at qualifying for the playoffs.
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