A high school principal has claimed that a football game was disrupted when the opposing team brought a Confederate flag and racially taunted his students.
Nick Dawkins, the principal of Manual High School in Denver, shared the shocking story in a letter to parents following the Manual Thunderbolts’ Friday home game versus the Weld Central Rebels.
‘Last night, the Weld Central High School team, which has a Rebel mascot, displayed a Confederate flag during the first quarter of the game, offending many members of the Manual community. We asked them to remove the flag and they did so,’ Dawkins wrote.
The principal also said that some of his school’s players had reported that Weld players had ‘taunted them with racial slurs’ during tackles.
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The principal of Manual High School in Denver (pictured) said that visiting team Weld Central Rebels disrupted a game Friday night with a Confederate flag
A Confederate flag is seen in this file photo. No pictures of Friday’s game were immediately available to corroborate the incident, and some parents have disputed the account
Manual High School principal shared a shocking account of Friday’s game in this statement
Dawkins also said that three Manual players were injured during the game, but are receiving treatment and will be fine.
Manual’s student body is 29 percent black and 6 percent white, according to state data. At Weld Central, located 40 miles northeast of Denver, the student demographics are 58 percent white and less than 1 percent black.
At both schools, Hispanic students make up most of the rest of the student bodies.
Mascot: The Weld Central Rebels’ Civil War-era mascot has generated controversy
There were no photos of the Confederate flag incident available, and local Fox affiliate KDVR reported that parents from both schools had emailed saying the incident did not happen the way Dawkins described it.
Officials at Weld Central were not reachable on Sunday and the school had not issued any public statement on the matter.
Weld Central’s mascot, a Civil War-era soldier, has generated controversy in recent weeks.
Two petitions, one calling for the abolition of the Rebel mascot and one calling for its preservation, circulated in August, as tensions boiled nationwide over Confederate memorials.
‘Regardless of the reason why a school started 100 years after the Civil War in Colorado would choose to use Confederate symbols for a mascot, it’s disrespectful to people of color and aggrandizes a movement that is abhorrent,’ Emma Locke wrote on the petition calling for the mascot’s removal.
Weld Central High School (pictured) is located in a rural community 40 miles northeast of Denver. The student body is 58 percent white and less than 1 percent black
But many in the small farming community of Keenesburg, where Weld Central is located, expressed emotional ties to the mascot and strongly oppose its abolition.
‘Growing up here and still living in the area not once did I ever associate the Rebel mascot with any thing other than a symbol of unity, of a band of brothers and sisters united together toward a common goal,’ alumnus Stan Roskop wrote on Facebook as the controversy flared.
‘I have often stated that I am a Weld Central Rebel , my children are Weld Central Rebels, and my grand children will be Weld Central Rebels.’
The Rebels beat the Thunderbolts 48 to 12 in Friday’s game.