Point Reyes Light - October 31, 2002
Racist soccer player attacks Braves' star
By Andrea Blum
A St. Vincent High soccer player was suspended from school and Petaluma Police were called to investigate after a bench-clearing brawl at St. Vincent’s Friday.
The brawl broke out when a St. Vincent player rubbed dog feces on a star player of Tomales High while cursing him with racist and obscene epithets.
The fight stopped the match with the Braves behind by one point, leaving the final score a 2-3 loss for Tomales.
Both teams were also forced to forfeit their next matches. Tomales had been scheduled to play Middletown High Tuesday, but because of the forfeit, the Braves’ last match of the season will be against Upper Lake at 3:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 1, in Lake County.
As described by Tomales High players, their parents, and Light sports correspondent Kim Ventresca, here is what happened.
About five minutes before the match ended, at St. Vincent’s a mid-field defender landed in dog feces during a slide tackle and then rubbed his jersey against Paco Padilla.
Padilla later told Light correspondent Ventresca that the St. Vincent player at the same time said, "This dog sh-t is for you, you dirty f-cking beaner."
The insults precipitated an immediate fight in which three other St. Vincent players jumped in on the side of their teammate. Seconds later 10 to 15 players from each team were in an all-out fight at midfield. "It happened so fast no one could do anything about it," said Jeffrey Hickey of Inverness, the father of a Tomales player.
Although no one was seriously injured, according to Ramon Ramírez, a father of a Tomales player, one of the Braves, Rubén Sóstenes, was bitten in the upper arm. "It was a huge pile of people," said one witness.
Among those who broke up the brawl was Hickey, who noted, "I used my voice and said, ‘Back off, now!’ and got their attention. People began to move in opposite directions."
Hickey, who attends nearly every game, reported taunting mixed with racial slurs on and off the field by St. Vincent players and students. Tomales and St. Vincents have long been rivals, and Hickey said, there is a history of this...It happens every game. I said to myself, ‘Here it goes again.’"
However, the athletic director of St. Vincent High, Sue Keller said, "Faculty members on the side lines didn’t hear any racial comments." She said one of the faculty members at the game teaches a morality class, and "if there were racial slurs we would have heard about it from that teacher."
Responding to Keller’s comments, sports reporter correspondent Ventresca said, "Give me a break. [The Mustangs] always talk trash – making racist comments. Our team is 90 percent Latino while they only have one Latino on their team."
Attack called ‘premeditated’
Tomales High Principal Terry Hughey on Wednesday told The Light, "It is clear in my mind that the [St. Vincent’s player’s] act was premeditated and intentional."
Virginia Veach of Inverness Park, a parent of a Tomales player, said that as she was leaving the ballfield with Padilla and her son, a St. Vincent student came up and sneered, "Paco, I told you this would happen."
The comment caused Veach to conclude, "This was a hate crime. It was a premeditated deal. That just can’t be tolerated."
St. Vincent athletic director Keller said a player has been suspended from school as a result of the incident. "We have talked to our soccer team," she said. "We are trying to find out what happened. We have had enough. We need to change so this does not occur again."
The St. Vincent athletic director added, "We will look into having law enforcement at our games."
Parents Veach and Ramírez, as well as Tomales students, told The Light that the Braves soccer players don’t normally have to deal with much racial taunting, except when playing St. Vincents – and another religious school, Veach added.