Sportsmanship complaint ousts students from Mount Si High School fan section

A Mount Si High School administrator removed 10 Mount Si students from the Friday, Jan. 28 Mount Si boys basketball game against Sammamish High School, citing poor sportsmanship.

In support of the 10 students who were told to leave, the entire student section, about 30 total, also left the Sammamish High School gym.

The students were reportedly jeering at individual players with chants of "you, you, you," and taunting the Sammamish fan section with cheers of "let's play football," presumably because Mount Si soundly defeated Sammamish last football season. The students had also taunted the administrator herself, with chants of "We're in prison."

"It's totally against league policy to do that kind of cheer," said Mount Si Principal Randy Taylor. He added that the KingCo league has been working on fan sportsmanship for the past two years, setting standards of behavior, and by requiring every school to have a representative at all events, home and away, to enforce that behavior among the fans.

As a result of the events last Friday, three senior boys will be banned from attending school events for the rest of the basketball season. Taylor said that each of them had received several warnings in the past and all were "on their last thread." Three other students had previously been banned for the season.

Taylor said Mount Si High School is very concerned about sportsmanship, and staff has worked with students on appropriate shows of support for their sports teams.

"We've pretty much set the tone for that. Kids know our expectations," Taylor said. "If they're not going to rise to that expectation, then they can't participate."

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