Posted on 10/17/2018 2:50:20 PM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
The Penn Hills girls volleyball team will skip its volleyball game in Connellsville tonight amid a controversy between the two school districts involving accusations of racism and insensitivity.
“The Penn Hills Girls Volleyball Team will not be traveling to Connellsville to play volleyball in a make up game scheduled for this evening,” Coach Jay Mitlo wrote in a blog post . “… and here’s why. It won’t be about fun, sports, or even America for that matter. It’s about racism, intimidation, and lack of respect. I’m not supporting those things. “
Mitlo said the decision to skip the game came after the WPIAL found no wrongdoing in Connellsville Area School District’s decision to bring armed police officers to several sporting events at Penn Hills, including a volleyball game last week.
“WPIAL did not find that Connellsville’s actions rose to the level of being ‘culturally insensitive’ or in violation of any PIAA or WPIAL rules or policies,” WPIAL Executive Director Tim O’Malley wrote in a letter to Penn Hills Superintendent Nancy Hines obtained by the Tribune-Review.
Connellsville Area School District Superintendent Joseph Bradley declined to comment.
Mitlo told the Tribune-Review that each of the 18 players on the volleyball team spoke with coaches before the decision was made to not play Connellsville.
“There was everything from anger, frustration, disappointment,” Mitlo said of the athlete’s feelings. “I can tell you this, though. Fear had very little to do with it. They were not afraid for their safety … there wasn’t a girl that was was like, ‘what might happen to me there?’ We’re tougher than that.” Instead of playing Connellsville, the girls’ volleyball team will have one last practice of the season. “We’re going to play some volleyball and have pizza. We’ll enjoy life, volleyball and each other — the opposite of what we were heading into,” he said.
After Wednesday’s forfeit, the team’s record stands at 6-10. The Indians finish out the season against Plum on Thursday.
The head coach of 22 years said he hopes the girls learn two life lessons from the situation with Connellsville. “To be blameless, to rise above was the first lesson,” he said, referencing the team’s actions highlighted in a blog post he wrote. He said the team greeted the Connellsville volleyball team with a welcome sign and by placing bags of candy on chairs in the Penn Hills gym before an Oct. 9 game.
The second lesson, he said, was that Penn Hills coaches will support the student athletes through life. “Does this change everything? No. But I hope they think, ‘they heard me and they cared for me,’” Mitlo said. “We’ll care for you for the rest of your life. And this is a small action to show that we mean that. I hope they will carry that with them.”
Last week Connellsville played a high-school football game at Penn Hills and brought armed police officers along with the team for safety.
Penn Hills has responded with snowflake cries of "AAAAAHHHHH, GUNS!!!" and "RAAAAAACISM". They filed a complaint with the athletic governing body, the WPIAL, which ruled that Connellsville did nothing wrong.
So now we are taking the insanity to Kavanaugh levels by boycotting and forfeiting games in other sports.
Connellsville is NOT a wealthy community, and I highly doubt it is 100% white.
Seems like the athletic governing body should be hiring security anyway.
Rename Penn Hills to Hussein Obama High.
Thanks for the background info. Yeah, I dont blame them. When you dont feel good about an environment, why go? I dont go to obama hoods either, being a cracker’ and all. Then again, there could be some limp-wristed snowflakes on the Penn Hills team.
I ref high school volleyball, and there is always a law enforcement presence at the matches and many teams bring a school district police officer with them.
The home school must know their school has a gang problem that they haven’t dealt with.
Penn Hills used to be a nice area, but that was years ago. It now has shootings on a regular basis. Some of my family lived there, but that was decades ago.
I see a lot of virtue signaling in this article and very little substance.
Why did the football team feel the need to have an escort? No school is going to foot the cost of that without some rationale.
Also, if the motive is racism and the school is teh raciss - would it not be better to actually show up AND compete to show up the raciss school instead of having a pizza party and probably comfort animals to assuage their fee fees?
Yep.
Pointing out that there is a problem is always met with Accusations of racism by the very racist idiots in charge who allow and deny the problem.
Classic misdirection by very childish minded, incompetent people.
BM
-—lived all my life in connellsville-—not a racist community-—never an issue with race -—graduated almost
60 years ago. My dad ran track with John Woodruff ( a
black man who won the gold in the 1936 olympics in germany!
GOOGLE Harold Betters the trombone player—I played in the
Firemens Band with he and his brother. The PROBLEM IS WITH
THE RACIST PENN HILLS!!! What a shame!!!!
Easy solution. Put a shock collar on each and everyone who enters.
Who has the button?
I’ll bet it would be someone we all hate and wouldn’t trust.
where’s the pix?
The Indians LMAO! What a world we live in.
Interesting. Penn Hills was a wealthy suburb back when I was growing up in the area. We used to joke about the quarterback checking his stock options between plays. Didn’t know it had gone feral. Connellsville is more of a rural small town well away from the ‘Burgh. Used to go through there sometimes when I was a kid - seemed like a nice place.
That started me chuckling too.
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