Coast coach seeks apology after New Orleans basketball team quits mid-game
Like the rest of the boys basketball teams on the Coast, it’s been tough for the Pascagoula High School squad to get games in this season amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
That’s why Pascagoula coach Lorenzo Wright is still seeking an apology from Brother Martin High School in New Orleans after the basketball team’s coach, Christopher Biehl, waved his team off the court and quit during a tournament game at St. Stanislaus in Bay St. Louis on Saturday.
“I’ve never seen anything like it at all,” Wright told the Sun Herald Sunday. “During this whole COVID thing, it’s hard to find games. We’ve lost about four games against really good teams. We were quarantined for two weeks after we had a guy test positive. We lost a game against Gulfport, the Gulfport Thanksgiving tournament and we lost the Biloxi game because a ref had COVID.
“We’ve got young guys trying to compete. I think our guys have gotten better and we wanted to use (the Brother Martin game) as a gauge to see where we’re at. I hated to see a team quit.”
Pascagoula was leading 18-16 in the second quarter when Wright acknowledges that the officiating crew missed a travel call on one of his players. It was one of a handful of questionable calls that went against Brother Martin during the game.
Biehl, who had already been called for a technical for arguing with officials, threw his clipboard to the floor after telling his players to leave the court.
“The refs were getting hammered by fans. They were upset about every call,” Wright said. “We push it up the floor, our guy catches it and drives back to the middle. He took four steps. There was no doubt he traveled. He gets upset, breaks his clipboard and said they were leaving. They packed up their stuff and left.”
Wright posted video of the moment where Brother Martin walked off the court to social media and he’s been getting phone calls from other coaches curious about what took place.
“I’ve told them all the same story and everybody is in disbelief,” Wright said. “All of us get frustrated with officials, but we’ve never decided to pull guys off the floor. Me personally, I don’t think it sends the right message to the kids. It says it’s OK to quit when it’s not OK to quit. Life gets hard. You have to press through and find a way.”
Brother Martin is 5-2 and Pascagoula, which was awarded a win in the game, has a mark of 9-2.
“I think they owe my guys an apology at least, address the issue,” Wright said. “They had nothing to do with that. Their issue was totally with the officials. Nobody talked to me. Nobody called me. St. Stanislaus apologized right away, but I told them it wasn’t their fault. They had nothing to do with that. I can’t let it go.”
This story was originally published December 23, 2020 at 12:37 PM.
