No Easy Layup for Catholic B-Ball League

C H I C A G O,  May 6, 2002 -- In one of America's most segregated cities, a celebrated attempt to have black and white grade-school children play in the same Catholic athletic league has ended on the sour notes of rancor and recrimination.

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On one level, the saga of St. Sabina Academy is a case study of how blacks and whites view the same facts in a dramatically racial different context. On another level, it is an example of how the prejudices of parents can stand in the way of children who want simply to play with each other.

In April, 2001, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Chicago's archbishop, Francis Cardinal George, sent a pastoral letter on race relations to all 378 parishes. In it, George lamented how racism had pervaded the church, and that, "in some cases" the community of faith became a private club."

Hearing ‘Code Words’ in Rejection

Just as Cardinal George was speaking out about race, the St. Sabina Academy — an all-black grade school on Chicago's south side — was petitioning to join the Southside Catholic Conference, an athletic league made up of 21 predominately white schools in the city and its southwestern suburbs.

St. Sabina's athletic director, Chris Mallette, said he simply wanted to give his teams a broader experience. "We had played white teams before and Latino teams, but we wanted to play, on a more consistent basis, kids with a different ethnic and social background," he said.

Mallette said he was told St. Sabina's admission to the conference, "was a done deal." But in May, 2001, the Southside Catholic Conference voted 11-to-9 to reject St. Sabina's entrance into the league.

League officials insisted the vote did not reflect racism but a fear of crime. Hank Lenzen, the conference executive director at the time, said he strongly supported St. Sabina's admission to the league, but those who opposed it , "were speaking very strongly about not allowing their wives and children to travel alone to the area, which was unknown."

The white pastor of St. Sabina's Catholic Church wasn't buying it.

Rev. Michael Pfleger, well-known in Chicago as an activist priest, called the crime issue a red herring. "I've lived for too long to not know code words when I hear them," he said.

To Father Pfleger, the word "crime" was code for "black."

First Acceptance, Then Withdrawal

After a flurry of negative national publicity — and heavy pressure from Chicago's Cardinal George — the Southside Catholic Conference reconsidered. Police from Chicago and its suburbs promised to provide security. Nearly a month after its initial rejection, St. Sabina was allowed into the league. The vote was unanimous.

The season got off to a strong start. Coaches and players from St. Sabina and other schools say most schools went out of their way to welcome the St. Sabina team members. One school held a pizza party. And St. Sabina's basketball team, "the Saints," was so dazzling on the courts that, in its very first season, the league championship seemed a sure thing.

But this spring, as the basketball playoffs approached and it was clear St. Sabina had a strong shot at the championship, there was more trouble.

The conference invoked a rule forbidding players from different grades to play on more than one team. League officials insisted it was a longstanding, but "unwritten" rule. But Mallette, St. Sabina's athletic director, claimed he "was not made aware of this rule until just prior to the playoffs."

And Mallette had other complaints. He alleged one of his player had been called a "nigger" after a game and that the league failed to follow its own mediation process for such incidents. The other school involved insisted the complaint was unsubstantiated. St. Sabina complained, too, that games were not being scheduled at its home gym. After a while, the grievances piled up. In March, before its first season had ended, the St. Sabina parish voted to pull its teams from the Southside Catholic Conference.

Father Pfleger said he supported the decision because, "it's important to teach children when to take a stand."

But officials of the Southside Catholic Conference charged the activist priest with playing the race card; exploiting a children's athletic league to score bigger political points. Lenzen, the former conference director, said St. Sabina ignored the great progress that had been made during the season. "Are there racial problem out there? Absolutely. I'd be a fool to think that there weren't," Lenzen said. "But I know for a fact that a lot of good things have been happening."

Principle or Publicity?

In interviews with ABCNEWS, many team members from St. Sabina and other schools in the conference echoed that sentiment.

Isaac Glover, an African-American seventh-grader at St. Sabina, said: "I was upset because I just wanted to play ball."

William Adams, a white player for St. Denis, believes St. Sabina should have stuck out the season. "They would have made a bigger statement if they had won the championship," Adams said.

But Johnny Moore, another St. Sabina basketball player, said it was more important to stand on principle, "The championship didn't mean anything to us."

The St. Sabina controversy was complicated by Father Pfleger's own reputation as a lightning rod for racial issues in Chicago. To his supporters, Pfleger is a dedicated civil rights activist. To his detractors, the white priest of a mostly black parish is a publicity-hungry rabble-rouser.

Even senior officials of Chicago's archdiocese made clear their unhappiness with Pleger's decision to pull out of the conference. Said Bishop Joseph Perry, who oversees 78 parishes on Chicago's south side: "We would have preferred that he hung in there."

So St. Sabina's season ended as it began, mired in controversy.

And while parents and league officials continue to bicker about what led to St. Sabina's pullout from a league where they were never entirely welcome, it seems clear the biggest losers are the children — black and white — who simply wanted to play basketball with each other.