The Elkhorn Area High School girls team held a 5 – 0 advantage over the Beloit Memorial High School on Thursday when Elkhorn fans started chanting “Donald Trump, build that wall” at the mostly Latina and black team, WISC-TV reported.
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A small group of Elkhorn students shouted racial slurs at minority players from Beloit during the game Thursday night, including chanting, “Donald Trump, build that wall”, according to Beloit Memorial coach Brian Denu.
Denu said the chants affected some of his players to the point they had to leave the game.
Denu said even though the chants came from a small group of Elkhorn students, their words had a big impact on his players. “One of the girls was cradled in the arms of one of our assistant coaches for a good 15 to 20 minutes”.
“Both admin teams worked with their students to direct them back to demonstrating school pride and celebrating appropriately”, said Elkhorn schools Administrator Jason Tadlock. “It was really disturbing for them”, he told WISC-TV.
In recent years, Elkhorn fans displayed American flags during athletics contests with Delavan-Darien, which was seen by some as a derogatory reference to the fact that a large percentage of Delavan-Darien’s residents are Latinos. Officials at Elkhorn also could not be immediately reached.
The Beloit coach, who is white, said he hopes the fans who taunted his players understand the hurt they caused.
The laws of soccer allow referees to suspend a game because of outside interference, which can include racist chanting.
Beloit players also heard, “go back to where you came from”, Denu said.
“Obviously, any time a team comes to our school… we all want them to feel welcome and have a positive experience”, he said to HuffPost.
During the game, three elementary school students who were sitting near Beloit fans said: “Trump, build a wall”, and two high school students chanted: “Trump” four or five times, Tadlock said.
‘My guess is that they’re good kids that have some really bad ideas in their head.
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Tadlock said the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletics Association has contacted him and is working “to assure that the two schools are addressing the matter appropriately”.
