A varsity football game Friday night in Tillamook pitted two teams with 4-3 records against each other in a critical late-season contest. The Mustangs, representing Milwaukie High School and the Milwaukie Academy of the Arts, were visiting the Tillamook High Cheesemakers to determine third place in a 4A division that spans the northern coast to suburban Portland.
Players on the Tillamook and Milwaukie high school football teams prepare to take the field at a game on Oct. 25, 2024. The game, hosted by Tillamook High, ended at halftime due to alleged racist conduct involving players and a referee.
Courtesy of Tillamook Headlight-Herald
But the game ended at halftime after a tense first half, in which Tillamook players and a referee allegedly used racial epithets toward Milwaukie players, creating an environment so threatening that the visiting team refused to resume the game for the third quarter. Milwaukie was trailing 45-7.
Officials at the two schools involved are limiting their comments, as the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) opens an investigation. OSAA has also declined comment for now.
According to Justin Brandon, the president of the booster club for the Milwaukie High School football team, the racial epithets started on the field, with slurs directed toward at least one Milwaukie player. The Tillamook Headlight-Herald reported tensions between the two teams also led to multiple unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. The game was stopped twice so that referees and coaches could discuss the tensions.
Brandon was not in the first on-field meeting, but based on conversations he had with coaches who were there, coaches and referees discussed a Tillamook player’s alleged use of the N-word toward a Milwaukie player. Brandon was told that in that meeting, one of the referees repeated the word in an offensive manner.
The second on-field meeting didn’t calm things down. Brandon said he was able to overhear the Milwaukie head coach ask the referee not to use the word, and only to have the referee use it again.
The teams left the field for halftime shortly after that. Milwaukie coaches and players met in their locker room and made the decision “not to go back out and play,” Brandon said.
“We didn’t feel it was safe for our athletes, our players, and didn’t feel supported in that community at all,” Brandon said. “We waited for everyone to gather their equipment, and we ushered everyone in one large group over to the buses.
“It was a really tough situation. It was terrible.”
The Tillamook School District released a statement Saturday noting the premature ending of the game “due to allegations of unsportsmanlike conduct and the use of racial epithets.” The statement signed by Superintendent Matt Ellis said that details of what happened were “unclear,” but said Tillamook was committed to an investigation. The superintendent said if any of the allegations were confirmed, it would “mark a deviation from the standards we seek to uphold” and would be “inconsistent with our values as an organization.”
Officials at the North Clackamas School District are declining comment and directing inquiries to OSAA.
Officially, the game ended as a victory for Tillamook, giving them third place in the division, and a loss for Milwaukie.
The Milwaukie-Tillamook game is far from the first athletic contest in Oregon this fall resulting in players feeling unsafe and targeted for their race. Players on the David Douglas High School football team have had to deal with racial epithets at multiple games this season.
It’s not new this year, either. In 2021, the Gladstone football team was subjected to racist taunts at a game in La Grande, as reported by The Oregonian/Oregonlive at the time. And the incidents aren’t unique to football; also in 2021, the OSAA investigated racial slurs at a girls’ basketball game between De La Salle North Catholic and Clatskanie.
Brandon, with the Milwaukie High football boosters, suggests teams responsible for such racist conduct should have to forfeit the game, and the players involved should be suspended. He says the state’s school activities association —which is responsible for staffing games with referees and umpires — has work to do.
The OSAA has training materials intended to support a positive atmosphere at contests, including a 31-slide presentation titled “OSAA Interrupting and Preventing Discriminatory Acts Training.” Lawmakers have attempted to intervene, including by passing House Bill 3409 in 2019.
“I think OSAA needs to figure something out. They need a really harsh rule,” Brandon said. “This can’t keep happening.”