Greensboro Dudley at odds with NC NAACP

Skip Alston may have bitten off too much to win this battle.

Dudley trip on despite boycott
By Jennifer Fernandez, Staff Writer, Greensboro News & Record
8/29/03

GREENSBORO -- Dudley High's South Carolina basketball tournament is still on.

But so are discussions with the NAACP, which wants the school to pull out of the prestigious match and honor a national NAACP boycott of the Palmetto State for flying a Confederate flag on its Statehouse grounds.

Parents leaving a 90-minute closed-door meeting at the school Thursday said the overwhelming majority want to go on the trip.

"The issue right now is for us to support our children. And our children want to go to the tournament," said Lisa Walker, whose daughter Eboni Morrison plays on the junior-varsity team.

Jason Wilson, who is the guardian of freshman Sierra Little, agreed.

"The flag issue, it's an important issue, but sometimes you kind of overlook the welfare of the kids," he said.

Emerson Girardeau III, president of Dudley's Student Government Association, said most students also favor their teams going on the trip.

"We made a decision as a school," said Girardeau, a 17-year-old senior. "Why come in and fight us?"

However, he added, that doesn't mean students support South Carolina's display of a Confederate flag.

Both the boys and girls teams have been been invited to play this December in the Beach Ball Classic and the Holiday Invitational in Myrtle Beach, S.C. The school decided last spring to go. Teams from as far away as Maryland, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Texas have agreed to participate.

Melvin "Skip" Alston, president of the North Carolina NAACP and chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, asked Dudley officials to honor the organization's boycott and withdraw from the tournament. Deena Hayes, a Guilford County Board of Education member, also made the request.

"It was our first attempt to address our concerns," Alston said after the Thursday meeting. "We have three months before they go."

He said there will be more community meetings. Earlier, Alston had said if he was unable to persuade Dudley officials to abandon the trek, he and Hayes would appeal to the district's administration and the school board.

Meanwhile, the trip is still on, said Dudley principal Tony Watlington.

The media were barred from the meeting, which drew more than 70 parents, students and Dudley staff.

Basketball players, who said they were told not to speak to the media or attend the meeting, hovered outside the glass doors to the media center. As they joked among themselves, some complained about the NAACP, an organization that supports minority issues, trying to influence a school decision.

Dudley's student enrollment is 99 percent minority and, according to some students, a big beneficiary of NAACP scholarships.

Kennitrish Means, a 17-year-old senior who is not a member of the basketball team, said she is worried that the NAACP will stop its support of the school if the teams don't honor the boycott.

"Many people need that scholarship," she said. "Since they fund a lot of stuff we do, I do think they (NAACP) should have a say-so."

N.C. A&T, a historically black college in Greensboro, still sends teams to South Carolina.

But that is different, Alston said earlier this week, because the college has contracts and conference obligations to play those teams. Dudley chose to attend this tournament and could join another one.

Alston said he doesn't know whether other state NAACPs are protesting team trips to this high school tournament.

"I'm not worried about those," he said. "I'm just worried about my hometown, Dudley."

 

Little Four will play on without Dudley
By Jim Young, Staff Writer, Greensboro News & Record
8/29/03

GREENSBORO -- While there's still some question about where the Dudley girls and boys basketball teams will be playing during the Christmas holidays, it is certain where they won't play -- the Little Four Invitational basketball tournament.

In the spring, the Dudley boys basketball team received an invitation to play in the prestigious Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach, S.C. The school agreed to play in the tournament, but that decision had several effects, the most recent of which has been a debate with local NAACP officials. They would like Dudley to honor the organization's economic boycott of South Carolina. The NAACP is protesting the continued presence of the Confederate flag on state house grounds.

The decision also meant the Panthers boys team would not be able to play in Greensboro's Little Four, which will be held at the same time as the Beach Ball Classic. It will be the first time the Panthers will miss the tournament since its inception 28 years ago, according to Donald Moore, the tournament's director and a member of the Greensboro Sports Council.

The Dudley girls team will also not be playing in the Little Four, to ensure that each school in the tournament has both a girls and boys team participating.

"We want eight schools,'' Moore said. "We don't want nine or 10 or 11 schools with this girls team and that guys team. It's too complicated and it shouldn't be that way."

Both Dudley teams will remain absent from the Little Four this year, even if the school decides to honor the NAACP's boycott. According to Moore, Southwest Guilford has been invited to join the eight-school Little Four field. No further changes are expected.

"We've committed to Southwest Guilford,'' Moore said. "As far as I know, it's an open-and-shut deal.''

Last year the Little Four paid $10,800 to each of the eight participating schools, Moore said. Guilford County athletics director Herb Goins said the payoff Dudley would receive for playing in the Beach Ball Classic "probably will be a little less.'' Joe Godette, Dudley's athletics director, refused to disclose how much Dudley would receive, and the Guilford County Schools office could not provide an answer by late Thursday.

But Goins added that the trip was more about prestige and exposure and less about money.

That's why Bobbie Chavis, father of Dudley freshman guard Josh Chavis, was supportive of the team traveling to Myrtle Beach.

"To be able to go and do well in this tournament can open up doors for all these kids,'' Chavis said.

After receiving word it could not play in the Little Four this year, the Dudley girls team entered the Holiday Invitational, a girls tournament in Myrtle Beach the week before the Beach Ball Classic.

Members of the girls team expressed excitement over the chance to play other top teams, but also regret at not being able to compete in the Little Four, where they have been finalists the past three seasons.

"In Myrtle Beach we might get scholarships and recognition and the scouts,'' said Vatai Smith, a senior post player and daughter of Dudley coach Andrea Smith. "But it's nothing like having a home crowd.''

 

A HS being held hostage...what a disgrace