(2-8-18) – Two Ohio girls basketball teams located in the Cincinnati metro area showed what unity  against racism can be when you work together. Members of the Loveland and Walnut Hills teams gathered together at mid-court and  locked arms or held hands during the National Anthem. The teams wanted to show unity and make a strange statement on racism, this after recent reports that a student section yelled racially offensive terms at a rival basketball team’s players and staff last weekend.

Loveland Head Coach Darnell Parker told cincinnati.com about his thoughts on why the two schools decided to do this together:

“Both of us are in unique situations in that we are men coaching girls basketball, but also the fact that he is a white male coaching a team with predominately black players, and on the flip side, I am a black male coaching a team with predominately white players. That in itself I commend both the Walnut and Loveland administrations, community members and players for seeing well beyond gender and race while choosing their coaches.”

RELATED: Loveland, Walnut Hills basketball programs stand united to make a statement against racism

The two coaches met and decided what would be the best way to get the message across about promoting ‘unity’ to solve the problem in the right way and at the same time not to disrupt the game:

“After kicking around a few ideas, we decided that we were going to honor our country by standing in unity as one. Coach Lazar and I left yesterday’s game extremely proud of our kids! You can’t solve problems with division. You solve problems by coming together and uniting.”

The final score of the game found Walnut Hills picking up a 66-42 win over Loveland and claiming their second Eastern Cincinnati Conference title.  But there were no losers on this night as both teams won by their actions in supporting unity and a stance on racism during the National Anthem. Both teams set the positive example that they can be proud of you and hopefully it will spread to other games around the US.

Loveland Coach Parker

If you left tonights game and you weren’t moved by the powerful image of Unity, then shame on you. Win or lose, tonight these kids were playing a GAME… Everyday these kids deal with REAL LIFE! We share one world and these kids deserve to grow up in a world thats UNITED!

 

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