The Shakerite VOL 91 ISSUE I

Junior basketball player Danny Young Jr. related
his experiences playing against Brunswick
during his freshman year. “When we were playing,
I was walking to the corner, and somebody called
me the N word, and everything broke loose. I fouled
out and they called me the N word again. I kicked
a couple trash cans and got ejected,” Young said. “I
feel like [racism] is in sports a lot.”
Head men’s varsity basketball coach Danny
Young cited reasons for the league change from
GCC to LEL. “There were some racial issues at certain
GCC games that made the decision to move
back to the LEL. There were some racial tensions
that were directed at our athletes during contests.
I think it was the right thing to do to return to the
LEL,” he said.
Young was interviewed by WKYC in 2019 about
the racial slurs that were directed at Shaker players.
“They were called porch monkeys and the N-word. I
had kids in the locker room this year crying because
they were called those names,” he told WKYC. In the
interview Young also gave his opinion on the racial
tensions and why Shaker left the GCC. “It’s only so
much that young men can take, and you just don’t
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want to keep putting them in those environments
where they have to be subject to that,” he said.
Young said the league switch was based on more
reasons than those related to race. “We left due to
location and proximity to all our games. [It] helps
especially when student-athletes do not have to get
home so late during weekday games. Rivalries have
increased due to neighborhood games, which will
help our fans be able to attend games,” he said.
The GCC schools farthest from Shaker are Medina
and Elyria high schools, which are both 48 minutes
away. The average distance to a GCC school is
38 minutes. The farthest LEL school from Shaker is
Lorain, which is 56 minutes away. The average distance
to a LEL school is 20 minutes.
Shaker’s return to the LEL is a move away from
majority-white schools and a move toward majority-Black
schools. The GCC has an average of 27.18
percent Black students and 55.4 percent white students.
Medina has the largest percent of white students,
at 89 percent, compared to Euclid, which has
a 82.1 percent Black student population.
On the other hand, the LEL has an average
of 78.27 percent Black students and 8.96 percent
VOL. 91 ISSUE I