Channel 11’s Randy Shaver says North High is unworthy

Randy Shaver is wrong. He nominated North High Polars’ coach, Charles Adams III, for the Coach of the Year Award. Then, after the loss to Dawson-Boyd in the Minnesota State High School League championship series, Randy Shaver texted Coach Adams that he regretted having nominated him for Coach of the Year. Shame on you Randy, you know better.

Shaver, a former high school football coach, former director of sports for Channel 11, winner of various sports reporting awards and as a member of the Minnesota Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame, knows better. Note that Channel 11 ran a story of praise on Coach Adams October 15, 2014, “Minneapolis North coach makes a difference.”

The success of North High this past football season is a story for the ages. It has engendered great pride in the community, from no wins four years ago to 12-1 this year, culminating in the Class 1A Championship semi-finals that it lost. Coach Adams’ coaches and team have earned their accolades for a job well done. So what’s up with Randy Shaver?

Four years ago the program was left for dead (no victories, less than 20 players, Board of Education talking about eliminating football). Then along came Charles Adams III, a native son of North Minneapolis, a Minneapolis police officer, and obviously a heck of a football coach. His father, Sgt. Charles Adams II, has assisted him, as has his brother and fellow police officer and former all- state basketball player, Tony Adams

You can understand the shock when Coach Adams received the mean-spirited text from Randy Shaver. At issue: complaints by parents and fans of Dawson-Boyd High School accusing North High and its players, coaching staff and fans as being thugs and hoodlums unworthy of positive recognition.

It sounds like the film Remember the Titans and the racial animosity toward the Black members of the Titans’ team on the field and in the community. Shaver had it backwards. During the course of The Dawson-Boyd victory, the all-Black North High team was the target of racial epithets, dirty play during the game, and incredibly bad officiating (check the tape) in an all-around threatening environment in that November 14 game.

Despite North reporting threats and poor officiating, including incidents along the sidelines in which North’s coaching staff had to protect players from that hostile environment, there was no response from officials other than the equivalent of shut up and play on.

Shaver’s statement was unwarranted. He disrespected the North High community. Our own Charles Hallman has been out front reporting on the racist undercurrent within the Minnesota sports scene, reporting racism at all levels, professional (Timber- wolves, Twins and Vikings), collegiate (Gophers), and high school. This has been a major topic with us for the last year and a half.

Part of the dark undercurrent of racism includes the fact that this inner-city school was left to rot, without what White schools get, the best in equipment, uniforms and whirlpools.

Some think Black journalists don’t have the right to speak the truth and lay out the facts. Randy Shaver and Channel 11 are just the tip of the racist spear that so often plunges into dreams and aspiration of African Americans at every level. It remains the constant elephant in the room.

Speaking first without asking questions is called business as usual in White America’s journalism and the world of White perception and privilege. Channel 11 is the Whitest Twin Cities TV station. No wonder it knows so little about conversations around other water coolers beyond Route 55.

Stay tuned.

For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solutions papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. To order his books, go to www.BeaconOnThe HillPress.com.