Students at Seaford Senior High School in Delaware mocked the National Anthem before a girls’ varsity volleyball game on Tuesday, prompting scorn from spectators and apologies from the superintendent.
“This event is not representative of the Seaford School District or its students, and the District will take appropriate action to ensure proper response and modification of pre-game proceedings,” Seaford Superintendent David Perrington wrote in a letter to parents and others who attended.
“We apologize for this unfortunate event,” he wrote.
The “unfortunate event” featured a horrible rendition of the National Anthem performed by Roseanne Barr at a baseball game between the San Diego Padres and Cincinnati Reds in 1990. Barr, who spit and grabbed her groin after the performance, earned public scorn for making a mockery of the Star Spangled Banner, WGMD reports.
Parent Lindy Ohlig detailed what went down in Seaford in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
“My daughter attends Milford Senior High School and I was attending her varsity volleyball game tonight at Seaford High School and witnessed the most disgraceful and disrespectful thing I’ve ever seen at a sporting event in my life,” Ohlig wrote.
“After announcing to the crowd to please stand for our National Anthem one of the players from the Seaford team plugged her cell phone to the gym speaker and proceeded to play a version of the anthem that actually poked fun of it. Everyone in the gym started looking at each other in disbelief. The officials, our Milford players and coaches and our parents,” she continued.
“But here’s the really sad part. When I looked out on the court the Seaford girls volleyball team was laughing uncontrollably and most of the Seaford players parents and other Seaford students were laughing as well,” Ohlig wrote. “I was absolutely disgusted and appalled at what I was witnessing. It took all of me not to go down on that court and rip that phone out of that speaker.
“What are we teaching our youth that something like this is funny or ok?! Why in the world didn’t the Seaford coach or one of the officials actually step up and turn it off immediately!”
Superintendent Perrington wrote:
An investigation was initiated to determine why the national anthem normally played was not used. As a result of the investigation, proper responses and pre-game proceedings will be improved to support such incidents from happening again.
The Milford School District’s Superintendent was contacted Tuesday evening with an apology regarding this incident. Additionally, letters of apology are being sent to Milford School District to be shared with student-athletes, coaches and fans who were known to be in attendance.
District officials did not immediately respond to WGMD’s inquiries about what, if any, punishments students faced for the stunt.
Leave a Comment
COMMENTS POLICY: We have no tolerance for messages of violence, racism, vulgarity, obscenity or other such discourteous behavior. Thank you for contributing to a respectful and useful online dialogue.