Some high schools in Baltimore, Maryland, are afraid to face an all-black "bigger and stronger" Catholic school team.
Over the past two years, the Saint Frances Academy Panthers became the most dominant high school team in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) Conference. Their dominance has gained them national respect as a top No. 1 powerhouse and fear from their opponents.
That fear has led to a number of high schools avoiding them all together. The Panthers outscored their MIAA opposition 342-50 last season securing a trip to the conference championship two years in a row, according to The Baltimore Sun.
Since the beginning of June, teams began dropping the Panthers from their schedules. So far, Mount Saint Joseph, Calvert Hall, McDonogh, Archbishop Spalding, Gilman and Loyola Blakefield (left MIAA in football entirely) high schools have forced Saint Frances to adopt an independent 2018 schedule. Schools claim the conference is no longer competitive, the Panthers are bigger, faster and stronger and some have criticized the school's recruitment process.
St. Frances Principal Deacon Dr. Curtis Turner believes their complaints are a pretext for racial bias.
“Reading the recent statement from Mount Saint Joseph High School and Calvert Hall College High School about our athletic league in general and Saint Frances Academy, in particular, has exposed a rift in the Baltimore community that many of us know exists, but few of us are willing to address. My community was angered and hurt by the insinuation that we don’t share the same values as other members. This is particularly harmful coming from other Catholic schools,” Turner said in a statement released on St. Frances’ Facebook page.
“It should be noted that Saint Frances Academy is the oldest Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. If anything, historically, we should be credited with setting the standard by which a Catholic school in Baltimore should be measured,” he added.
Turner has been in talks with one school, Calvert Hall, who claims they can't risk their players' safety going up against the more dominant team. Former McDonogh head football coach Don Damico said his players suffered severe bone injuries while facing the Panthers.
“They’re bigger, stronger, faster, better," Damico told The Baltimore Sun. "They’re like a college football team versus a high school football team. We’re not deep enough or strong enough to play them. That’s just a different breed of football.”
It has become clear, the Panthers have outgrown their competition. St. Frances announced in response to the backlash that it will play a national schedule instead of a local one in 2018.
