Popular Categories

No categories found.

Sore winner Coronado team throws tortillas and taunts at losing OGHS b-ball members


The winning CIF basketball team of Coronado High School redefined the term “sore winners” Saturday night, when, after defeating the Escondido Orange Glen High School Patriots the Coronado team members starting throwing tortillas at and taunting the Escondido team, which has many Hispanic players.

During the incident, which was recorded on multiple videos, the Coronado coach was heard to say a number of expletives to the Orange Glen coach and players. According to an eye-witness, the head Coronado coach told the OG coach at the end of the game, “Get your ______ loser team off my court.”

On Sunday the CIF issued a statement that it has begun an “immediate review” of the incident. “The CIF,” said the letter, “prohibits discrimination or any acts that are disrespectful or demeaning toward a member school, student-athlete, or school community. We are therefore working with the administration of both high schools in addressing this matter and upon receipt and review of incident reports from both schools, the CIF will determine the appropriate next steps.”

Sunday, the Coronado school board sent a letter of apology to the Escondido Union High School District. In the letter the Coronado board acknowledge, “these acts to be egregious, demeaning, and disrespectful. We fully condemn the racism, classism and colorism which fueled the actions of the perpetrators.”

The board extended an apology to Orange Glen High School athletes, parents, teachers and staff. “We have taken swift action and will convene on Tuesday, June 22, 2021 for an emergency special meeting of the board at which time we expect to hear the initial results of ongoing investigations and consider additional actions that may need to be taken.”

Sunday, the EUHSD school board sent out this letter to the Escondido community. “We have been in contact with the Coronado Unified School District regarding last night’s incident. They send their deep and sincere apology to the Orange Glen community and shared that the individuals who participated in these reprehensible actions do not reflect their school district values. We understand they will be taking swift action to address all those involved and have included their message to our community below.”

The letter continued, “There is no place or hate in EUHSD. We do not tolerate racism, cultural disrespect or any other behaviors that demean others. We remain committed, as a district, to creating safe spaces for all our students. What we do to combat racism and cultural disrespect must extend beyond the classroom and school campus. 

The letter concludes, “It is incumbent upon us to create environments in our larger communities where our students feel respected, valued and safe. We are hopeful that all those involved will learn from this incident and move forward with greater awareness and collective commitment to stand against racially insensitive and discriminatory practices.”

The Times-Advocate spoke to a father of one of the Orange Glen players, Mickey Chew, who is himself a coach of multiple high school sports, although not this year. This year he and his family have helped as scorekeepers for the Patriots.

He said that the atmosphere of the championship game was unpleasant during the game, with some vociferous parents and fans doing their best to block OGHS fans from watching the game, and OG officials from filming it. “Coronado fans started off really obnoxious,” Chew said, and said that some of the fans in the stands threw bags of tortillas at the OG team.

Chew said that there may be some history between the two opposing coaches, who have coached traveling basketball teams together. He noted that the two opposing teams had met twice before in close fought games.

Saturday night’s game was also close fought. It went into overtime before ending with a score of 60-57, giving Coronado the championship.

During halftime, said Chew, a Patriot parent went to a Coronado administrator and asked that something be done about the disrespectful hometown crowd, but nothing was done.

“At the end of the game in overtime, as we went over to shake hands, you saw a few of the fans and bench players throwing tortillas in full packs at our athletes and our coaches.  While they were throwing the tortillas the head coach of the winning team told our coach to “Get your ______ loser team off my court.” 

Chew added, “Administrators were a big part of letting it get out of hand. The administrators enabled things by not doing their jobs.”

As the administrators realized what was going on, recalled Chew, “One of them got on the mic and said that everyone had to leave immediately, with no award presentation. They sent us all out and sent players out different gym doors.”

As people excited the gym, said Chew, they brought in Coronado police, “who immediately harassed the Orange Glen parents. None of the police were on the Coronado parents.”

“The bottom line,” said Chew, “Throwing tortillas at our kids, our parents and our staff. These kids worked hard all year and they didn’t do anything to provoke this. Two uniformed players starting throwing tortillas at us as we politely walked forward to shake their hands.”

Chew said he has no faith that anyone will hold the coaches responsible and advised, “CIF should put their money where their mouth is about good sportsmanship. They need to hold people responsible.” He added, “We all know that CIF wants to sweep it under the rug and make it go away.” He continued, “I’d like to see that people who are responsible be held responsible for their actions. This is grounds for a coach to be fired.”

59 responses to “Sore winner Coronado team throws tortillas and taunts at losing OGHS b-ball members”

  1. Human Being says:

    Coronado should be removed for the rest of the year! Zero Tolerance??

    • Susie Withem says:

      I feel that Coronado High should be stripped of the championship title, the coach fired and administration reprimanded. I’m sure that Coronado High School has a few Hispanics on their team as well. Shame on them!

      • Carolyn Kuhn says:

        Agreed!!

      • Marcia says:

        I totally agree with everything you said Susie Withem. Arrogant and hateful behavior should have zero tolerance and a strong message needs to be sent to the Coronado school district, team, students and parents. They all showed a total lack of class. To Coronado – your apology was too little, too late. It was clearly nothing but an attempt at damage control. You need to review the attitudes that are being instilled in the students by parents and faculty.

      • KimJamul says:

        Fire the Coronado coach and those administrators that stood and did nothing. Yank Coronado from the series.
        Compulsory classes and deprograming for guilty team members . Parents to pay all expenses. There’s no hope for the guilty adults. Fire ‘em

  2. Karen says:

    Zero tolerance indeed. All parents students and teachers especially the Coach in Coronado should face expulsion, fired and no more games for remainder of season. We can’t stop racism if there are no solid consequences to oppressors.

    • Sarah says:

      I agree, but the season is over. Much needs to be done to hold Coronado to account. It appears that the Coronado school board is acting swiftly. They have made no excuses for Coronado’s behavior, and I hope they don’t at any point.

  3. Disgusted says:

    I used to live in San Diego, for 25 years in fact and went to high school there and grew up there but now I live out of State.

    This isn’t anything new in San Diego.

    Affluent teams winning and having to absolutely shame the opponent.

    Look at this season when Cathedral Catholic beat Lincoln 41-0 in football and had to wear t-shirts that mocked their community to rub it into their face.

    These kids are being enabled by the administrators by not doing anything because they’re too lazy or don’t want anything to leak out to the district.

    Well, now the cat is out of the bag and it’s right here.

    This is a putrid act of disgust and this is exactly why people hate the schools with money because they act like this.

  4. Lauri Harrison says:

    If CIF fails to act, then they choose to sanction the behavior. By not confronting this incident with a swift response, their inaction tells all that not only are the perpetrators just and acceptable in their behavior, but that they agree with them. CIF validates the harm and is, in fact, perpetuating the racist behavior. As responsible adults, we can no longer be silent. We are in the midst of change. Being an anti-racist is about action. It means actively taking steps to dismantle what was and to create what will be. Our students deserve change, and we have to be brave enough to do the work.

    • Touché! Name the plan and I’m there! This is the first I’ve heard of what happened and I’m sickened by it, as a parent, an Escondidoan and a HUMAN! Those kids deserved way better than what they got from the adults from Coronado. It was abusive. These people are supposed to be “child care custodians”, but instead, were the abusers. Maybe CPS should be involved in your plan. That gets attention and rightfully so.

  5. Kevin says:

    Not expulsion, but strip their win for that game – that way they can walk with the shame amongst their fellow students. Fire the coach (es) for Coronado, as well as any staff who participated. Stipulate no possible reinstatement, unless a personal appology letter is written, and hand delivered to each student, parent, and coach on the OGHS team.

    • Stuart says:

      Why not the death penalty for all involved? Any story involving race seems to draw out incredible over reaction these days, and I wish people could see that these extreme reactions are hurting more than they are helping racial issues in our country. Honestly, they are high school boys engaging in thoughtless and possibly mean spirited conduct. Sure, they should be reprimanded, but they shouldn’t be held to the same standard as adults. Some perspective and calm reasoning is what is needed to solve problems like this. Throwing gasoline on the fire is not the answer.

      • Joe Smith says:

        Adults were involved in the abuse. Read the article! Not to mention, theses “kids are old enough to know better. It’s because a certain segment has made public racism acceptable that these kids feel it’s okay. Unless it’s called out it just perpetuates more gross behavior. So yeah, only certain people would say that calling it out is the root of the problem.

  6. Bob says:

    I have been living in Coronado for the past 10 years. This is not exclude to sports environments.

    I am Asian. About 5 years ago, I was punched for no reason while sitting in my car (!!) and called racist names by a guy who lives at the other end of my block, who, I have NEVER had an interaction with prior to that. I got out of my car to asked him why, instead, he was ready to punch me again. I defended myself with a punch in return, called the Coronado police to have him arrested and charged with assault and guess what? They stated that I instigated the whole incident(!). I was never arrested and this guy denied punching me… hmmmm.

    In another incident three years ago, I was run over with a shopping cart at the local Smart & Final by a local who was also shopping there. He stated that I cut him off while I was standing still and looking at some steaks. He proceeded to call me derogatory Asian (Chink and Gook) names and told me he was a “wrestling coach and teacher in town for over 35 years”. (I want THAT role model to teach and coach my kids!!) To top it all off, this happened while my 4 year old son was right next to me, he saw everything!! One of the cashiers saw this racist encounter and later on told me that those types of racist incidents happens at least twice a week at their store.

    I have close minority friends who are also local residents and they have shared their disgusting racist local encounters in Coronado as well. Racist names that their kids have been called at the local Coronado Public school. One reason why I own and live in here but will NEVER let my kids attend their public school.

    I have had black friends pulled over by Coronado Police for “Driving While Black” and told to “get out of town”…. Not knowing that those friends of mine where Federal Law Enforcement Agents!! Why didn’t my friends share that information with those racist cops? Because it should not matter who you are and what you do for a living.

    This town is full of racist, bigot, ignorant and low class people, doesn’t matter how much money you think you have, or how much money your parents left you. You cannot change the strikes on a tiger.

    These are just two experiences from a local minority home owner and resident. Don’t want to bore you with more.

    • Yusef Miller says:

      Bob,
      I am Yusef Miller, with the North County Equity and Justice Coalition and the Racial Justice Coalition of San Diego, would love to chat with you. Yusefm@hotmail.com

    • Chris Parker says:

      Not one believable incident here mate. Completely made up. I’ve lived here since 1987 and have never seen or heard of this type of behavior. If it had it would have been talked about.

      I’m going to go to the police department today to confirm your accusation. What do you bet it never happened.

      They, who ever they are, want to hang Coronado out to dry, to make it the bastion of racial strife in the US. Absolute rubbish. This “get Coronado” attitude has been going on since the race driven BLM/Antifa riots last summer. BLM sent “activists” into town and tried to stir up trouble. We’re on the RADAR and they want a so-called “white trophy.”

      Throwing the tortillas was really dumb. However, the Orange Glen supporters were being provocative during the entire evening. I doubt there would have been any flying tortillas if they had been better guests. Yes, the Orange Glen supporters and team were hurling racial slurs, insults and postering during the second half. It was their side that charged at the Coronado bench after the game. Yeah, but let’s play the race card.

      Furthermore, let’s break down the school performance of each school – links:

      www.niche.com/k12/coronado-high-school-coronado-ca/

      www.niche.com/k12/orange-glen-high-school-escondido-ca/

      The disparity between the schools is staggering. I think Orange Glen should worry about getting their students proficient in Math and Reading rather than to investigate an alleged “racial incident.” I think they have a little more to deal with at that school than flying tortillas.

      • Bobbi Vee says:

        Can you explain why Coronado had packages of tortillas?

      • Dayna Espinosa says:

        Wow. Your comments show exactly what you are. You honestly think Coronado fans just carry around tortillas? Get your head out of the sand or just admit you are what we all know you are. Part of the problem.

      • James says:

        Wow… just, wow… what has happened in this country? You can read a journalists report on something that took place (with video) and folks can see it in a way that makes the aggressor the victim?

        I’m so confused as to how you got to that point.

      • Patrick Easterling says:

        Chris Parker should take off his MAGA hat and open his heart and brain. Having married an ethnic Chinese l was surprised, saddened, and horrified by the racism my children received. They were called Chinks, told that they weren’t “real Americans,” and often harassed and pulled over by the police.

      • Pamela Owens says:

        Alleged???? you must be Privileged and never been discriminated against.. if this slides then so will all the rest.. nope needs to be dealt with and addressed.. SWIFTLY! we arent talking about grades… a spade is a spade… racist acts no longer just brushed under the rug and everyone moves on except the ones degraded! jokster.

    • Chris Parker says:

      Nothing to substantiate your claims, whatsoever.

      • Bob says:

        Wow “mate”. I didn’t know that if YOU didn’t hear about it and YOU dug through all police notes (because like I said, I wasn’t arrested and read in between the lines, he wasn’t either) there was nothing to file. I bet you know EVERYTHING that goes around here, you are so knowledgeable. This town is so blessed to have you as the walking Wikipedia for correcting others and tell them that they just make up stories. So blessed. You probably even told the black family (who painted a mural on their property wall at the entrance of Coronado after the bridge) complaining about racist Coronado Cops crushing black/minorities kids souls. The mural was there for YEARS and has been taken down the last year or so. Maybe you talked sense into them and convinced them that whatever happened to their son, NEVER happened and it was made up. You did it. You are right! It was ALL in my head. Great work “mate”. Great privilege too. You must have been born with it along with your knowledge of the universe.

    • Pamela Owens says:

      exactly! but until its done on to you folks walk around with blinders an say this isnt happening.. im sorry u were assaulted..

  7. Karin says:

    As a a Coronadan I am deeply ashamed and angry that this happened. The coach should be fired, the athlete participants should be kicked off the team permanently. Student athletics should be teaching sportsmanship, and you can’t do that with a coach who sets such a poor example. Lots of us here feel that way–we are not all entitled bullies. We will be looking to make sure that the apologies aren’t just hollow words.

    • Pamela Owens says:

      thank you and i agree. his disciplinary hea
      ring is today. FIRED is the only answer.

    • Laurie says:

      I totally agree with you. This is really appalling behavior by a coach and fans, Who came with their tortillas. I graduated Coronado high school and I am embarrassed for the school and the community at this blatant display of racism. And the idea that anyone here is defending such behavior just has me shaking my head in disbelief. We have a long way to go.

  8. Josh Wagner says:

    Wow, that is quite the one sided article. You cite one source who happens to be a parent of an Escondido player. That source makes several inflammatory claims but provides zero evidence as to support any of the claims. Perhaps the Escondido Times-Advocate could have made an effort to speak to someone from the Coronado side or at the very least cited multiple sources who might corroborate the claims of Mr. Chew. But alas, I guess asking for real journalism is too much these days.

  9. Pamela Owens- OG Alumni and Parent of OGHS CIF Champs 2014 says:

    Disgusting!!!! after seeing players throwing the tortillas as well.. i now 100% believe they should be stripped of the State Championship! Poor excuses. Sick of hearing the BLAH BLAH BLAH of apologies in societies racism.. its old.

    • Yusef Miller says:

      I am Yusef Miller, with the North County Equity and Justice Coalition and the Racial Justice Coalition of San Diego, would love to chat with you. Yusefm@hotmail.com

      I’m also and Escondido Resident.

  10. Jill says:

    Embarrassing. Boorish. Stupid. Bad attitude. Infantile. Ridiculous. Childish. And that’s the ADULT coach. HE should be harshly reprimanded and held up as example of what NOT to be. Fined, hurt his wallet if possible and stripped of his title. Kids/players follow their coach/managers antics and attitude. Bad news all the way around…

  11. Robert Blank says:

    Nothing new in San Diego. White intolerance over everything else, from pre k to high school to SDSU to SD government.

  12. Michael says:

    First of all and read carefully. There is no excuse or reason for what happened and whoever participated should be held accountable. If that be the title being stripped from Coronado, the coach being fired, players being punished, the person who supplied the tortillas being arrested, or all of the above. Whatever the CIF, Coronado School Board, Coronado Athletic Department, and Coronado Police Department deem fair those who participated should be held accountable. With that being stated I can’t believe the people involved just said let’s throw tortillas at them after the game as that will be cool. Something had to have previously happened, been said, or both by the opposing team or fans. There has to be some heated history between the two teams and we need to hear boths sides of the story. To make Coronado the villain and Escondido Orange Glen the victim before a full investigation is premature. Let the whole story unfold and be told before condemning only one school. Maybe I am wrong but I bet there is more to the story.

  13. Ernest Moreno says:

    Coaches and Administrators who refuse to take a STAND against racism are why this will persist. For starters that coach needs to be fired asap. All those who participated in the Tortilla throwing need to be charged with a hate crime. Any student that participated needs to be expelled. However, I am not holding my breath. Ernest Moreno, Co. C,1stBn. 2ndInf. Big Red One, 1967

  14. David Saenz says:

    l was asked in a job interview about the origin of my surname, which is not always recognized a Spanish. Upon hearing it, he complimented me on my English being very good for “one of my people,” and said he was looking for someone who was naturally better at business. No $#!%. This really happened. The job was driving a delivery truck while I was studying for a degree in engineering.

  15. Chris Parker says:

    I posted a comment in response to another comment about. No hyperbole, no racial undertones, just facts and a comparison of each academic school’s performance. Seems like the Times Advocate wants to push the “home town” POV rather than being objective.

    Congratulations, the ETA is part of the problem.

  16. Tom Fry says:

    Apology without accountability is hollow and meaningless.

  17. alnc says:

    I played high school basketball in Chicago. If this had happened there, that team would forfeit its win and be kicked out of the tournament–at the very least. The coach would be canned, too, and any players identified as participating in that assault on their opponents would be banned from H.S. sports. Any senior players would not be permitted to attend graduation ceremonies.

    But that’s there and we’re here so I fully expect that an apology will do and all those losers will get away with it.

  18. Eve says:

    It’s unfortunate that this situation occurred and overlooked the hard work members of both teams did. On the news I saw how happy some Coronado players were at winning this game before chaos unfolded, which makes it clear that, at the end of the night, there were no real winners. I’ve been a student on the sidelines watching basketball games in the past, and it’s easy to get invested when they get intense. But, I always saw how staff nearby would deescalate any potential physical conflict or completely stop inappropriate actions from either the home or visiting team. This is vital in ensuring that a basketball game remains just that.

    Thankfully the coach of Coronado’s team was fired because he was clearly great at leading teams to win, but horrible at remaining professional and humble. His captured remarks and body language spoke volumes about his true personality. He was supposed to be someone students follow after and his ease at mocking the staff and students of Orange Glen is not acceptable. I hope that the current investigation brings to light any other inappropriate actions/remarks done from either team/individuals so as to prevent any future scenarios like these.

    I also read another comment comparing the academic performances between the schools, which was confusing since it didn’t bring any real significance to this situation. You can have high academic scores and make mistakes/inappropriate actions, which this situation made clear since some Coronado students were seen throwing the tortillas during an already tense interaction between both schools. Again, I hope the investigation punishes those who did wrong accordingly and both schools could overcome this and learn from the ordeal.

  19. Steve says:

    The rush to judgement by so many in the news media, represented officials, and Escondido community members without waiting to learn all the facts from both sides is very disheartening and a sad reflection on our Nation’s current polarized state of affairs. I would point to the example set by Coronado’s Mayor Richard Bailey as the one we should all strive for – seek first to understand before passing any judgement or making any inflammatory statements. Shame on the Escondido Times Advocate and to all who have rushed to judgement and prematurely condemned and branded the CHS Coaching staff, Team, and community as Racists. Get your facts straight and await the results of the on going investigations before opening your mouth or taking pen to paper!!

Leave a Reply to Christine Griffin Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *