PHOENIX — Before the 3A boys basketball state championship game tipped off on Thursday, Coolidge supporters filled the lower bowl of Veterans Memorial Coliseum with cheers when the Bears took the floor just days after they thought their season was over.

Maria Valenzuela, a Coolidge resident, missed work to come and show her support.

“They came this far, why not miss a day of work and be here?” Valenzuela said. 

It was a trying two weeks for all that culminated with Palo Verde defeating Coolidge, 52-41, in the title game.

On February 25, the Arizona Interscholastic Association placed Coolidge on probation, barring it from competing further in the state playoffs despite a quarterfinal win on February 20 against Chinle, located on the Navajo Nation. During that game, there were allegations of Coolidge fans making inappropriate gestures involving a belt and directing racial taunts at Chinle fans and players.

In addition to the gestures and taunts, Chinle fans claimed that a Coolidge fan spat on a Chinle player after the game. Coolidge administrators subsequently removed the fan from the game and banned him from all future Coolidge events.

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Chinle school board official and AZ State Rep. Myron Tsosie took to social media after the game to ask Chinle fans to send him testimonies, as well as video and photographic proof that could be submitted to the AIA for review.

On February 25, the AIA scheduled an emergency executive session to discuss the potential punishment for Coolidge. The AIA board eventually voted to place Coolidge’s athletic program on probation and barred all teams from further postseason play after video surfaced that proved the allegations. The ruling effectively ended the boys basketball team’s season just two days before it was scheduled to play Snowflake in the semifinals.

Senator T.J. Shope, who served on the Coolidge Unified School District Governing Board, sent a letter to Jim Dean, the executive director of the AIA, detailing his disdain for the decision.

“My constituents and my alma mater are being villainized in a relentless torrent of negativity and half-truths, at best.” Shope said, “ I urge you to do your homework the same way I have to daily here at the Legislature before I make decisions that will impact people’s lives and, in this case, the lives of young men in my community.”

Coolidge supporters argued that the punishment from the AIA was too harsh for the actions of a couple of fans.

“The AIA executive board considered the violation as it resulted from Coolidge High School and made the decision based upon that,” Dean said Thursday.

Coolidge High submitted a corrective action plan related to the violation to the AIA before it was put on probation. The plan detailed how the school could improve crowd control in future situations.

On February 26, after the AIA denied Coolidge’s appeal, Coolidge sought a temporary restraining order against the AIA that would allow the basketball team to continue competing in the playoffs.

Coolidge argued in court that due to the short time frame, the district couldn’t implement corrective action at a subsequent game.

A Pinal County judge ruled in favor of Coolidge, allowing the team to play its semifinal game against Snowflake, which it won 62-48. But in the state championship game on Thursday, Palo Verde came out on top.

It is still unclear whether Coolidge plans to file an injunction for every sport that would be affected by the probationary status, but the AIA could make that a point moot.

“The executive board voted to reconsider the probationary status on April 20,” Dean said.

Despite the disappointing ending, Coolidge coach Dave Glasgow was thankful for the community’s support during the two weeks of turmoil.  “As low as we felt when things were at their worst, what they did for us pulled us back up,” Glasgow told pinalcentral.com. “This team is one with a ton of heart. We were dead twice, but we came back and made it to the state finals.”

This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.