Coach Jason Popp (pictured above) may see his entire undefeated basketball team (pictured below) at Richmond Heights boycott the rest of their games, after he allegedly used foul language and racial slurs against his players.

The Ohio team is 15-0, but most of the players are thinking about sitting out of their game on Tuesday if their coach remains at the helm. The parents of the kids also expressed outrage to the school board for their coach's behavior.


"Everybody in this room is responsible for these children, it's time to stop," said one parent, Nneka Slade Jackson.

"They been dealing with this for months (years), this ain't something that just started yesterday," another parent said.

One of the players described the language used by Coach Popp.

"He was like, 'Well, you guys don't go out and play n*gger basketball.' He was like, 'Cause this is what they gonna expect ya'll to do, play n*gger basketball'," said varsity player Jordan Early.

The School Superintendent, Dr. Linda Hardwick, said that she's investigating all sides of the issue before making a decision:

"Mr. Popp's reputation is at stake and the students -- I'm an advocate for children -- they must be treated fairly, if any of these allegations are true," she said.

This incident is certainly shocking, but it's not a surprise. Many high school basketball coaches across America have mistreated players on a regular basis, and in addition to exploiting the talent of black athletes, have served to ruin their careers.

I have a friend who was an All-American and a great college basketball player. He told me that after he'd left for college, he found out that the reason he wasn't getting the number of calls he expected from recruiters was because his high school coach was demanding money from teams wishing to speak with him.

He also learned that his coach was trying to leverage my friend's talents to find an assistant coaching job for himself at the college level. Effectively, college coaches stayed away from my friend because they felt him to be "too expensive." The funny thing was that the player had no idea that he was being traded around like a farm animal.

When I think about what Jason Popp is accused of doing, I think about all the young black athletes across America who are exploited, miseducated and disrespected by their coaches. The black male athlete, to some, is nothing more than a commodity to be hauled out of your nearest housing project to be used by high schools and universities for financial gain.

When LeBron James played in the very same state that these young men are playing right now (Ohio), his games were televised nationally on ESPN, leading to a huge financial windfall for the school district.

At the same time, James was being investigated for allegedly receiving some financial benefits from his play that the school had legally secured for themselves. It was perfectly legal for the school to profit from LeBron, but had become illegal for LeBron's family to gain anything from his labor. Am I the only one noticing how backward and degrading all this is?

Another recent case involving the school system in the state of Ohio is that of Kelley Williams-Bolar, the woman who was sent to jail for sending her kids to the "wrong" school district. This case relates to the racial issues at Richmond Heights in part, because the same school districts that will keep Kelley Williams-Bolar's kids out are the ones that will gladly ship a black boy out of the inner city so he can serve them on the basketball court. So, in other words, black people are rewarded for being athletic and in many cases punished for being intelligent.

If the coach was using this language toward his players, he should be fired immediately. The Superintendent can likely ascertain the truth behind the allegations by finding out how many players were witnesses to the coach's abusive language. The fact that so many players are willing to stand up against this coach is both telling and impressive, and I hope they are successful in their efforts to put an end to his tyrannical behavior.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the Athlete Liberation and Academic Reform Movement (ALARM). To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.