Referee forces HS wrestler to cut off dreadlocks before match

SummerMadness · Dec 21, 2018

Referee forces HS wrestler to cut off dreadlocks before match

A wrestler from Buena High School in Atlantic County was told by a referee with a history of racist behavior he had to cut his dreadlocks or forfeit his match during a dual meet Thursday night against Oakcrest, according to a report by SNJ Today News.

The wrestler, Andrew Johnson, opted to cut his hair, prompting what appears to be an athletic trainer to shear off his dreadlocks with scissors on the mat.

And before people ignore the article and defend the indefensible, there are legal hair coverings for wrestling that are allowed in the sport. This wrestler had his legal hair covering and the referee would not let him wrestle. The saddest part is the wrestler won the match, yet he looked defeated.

Hank77 · Dec 21, 2018

SummerMadness said:
Referee forces HS wrestler to cut off dreadlocks before match

And before people ignore the article and defend the indefensible, there are legal hair coverings for wrestling that are allowed in the sport. This wrestler had his legal hair covering and the referee would not let him wrestle. The saddest part is the wrestler won the match, yet he looked defeated.

I think the referee was wrong and should be reprimanded.
However, I don't see that this wrestler looked defeated, quite the contrary. If I were that boy's parent I would have yelled.....Hey, Ref, my boy isn't Sampson, you can't defeat him with a haircut.
And not only that he won against the ref the minute he allowed his hair to be cut. That's a man! Good for him.

Handmaid for Jesus · Dec 21, 2018

SummerMadness said:
Referee forces HS wrestler to cut off dreadlocks before match

And before people ignore the article and defend the indefensible, there are legal hair coverings for wrestling that are allowed in the sport. This wrestler had his legal hair covering and the referee would not let him wrestle. The saddest part is the wrestler won the match, yet he looked defeated.

That was a humiliation tactic. I am glad the young man won his match. And his hair will grow again.

grasping the after wind · Dec 21, 2018

SummerMadness said:
Referee forces HS wrestler to cut off dreadlocks before match

And before people ignore the article and defend the indefensible, there are legal hair coverings for wrestling that are allowed in the sport. This wrestler had his legal hair covering and the referee would not let him wrestle. The saddest part is the wrestler won the match, yet he looked defeated.

As much as I dislike dreadlocks, mostly due to the history of Aztec priests using the blood of their human sacrifices on theirs , no one ought to be able to tell another person what to do with their own body. As an aside, The NFL also ought to outlaw tackling people by their hair.

tulc · Dec 21, 2018

grasping the after wind said:
As much as I dislike dreadlocks, (snip)

uhmmm....
tulc(quietly tucks his dreads up under his hat and drinks his coffee)

Handmaid for Jesus · Dec 21, 2018

tulc said:
uhmmm....
tulc(quietly tucks his dreads up under his hat and drinks his coffee)

Do you have another hat I can borrow.

Dynadin · Dec 21, 2018

I wrestled in high school in the late 80's, and most of us had obscene-length mullets. Our headgear covered some of it, but certainly not all and I can't recall a single time a ref cited a rule or concern about it.
Obvious racism is obvious.

tulc · Dec 21, 2018

Handmaid for Jesus said:
Do you have another hat I can borrow.

Sure do! Mine look a lot like this:

only everything not dreaded is shaved, they go down to my waist and they've mostly locked together into two long thick dreads.
tulc(yep it's a dread-mullet)

Handmaid for Jesus · Dec 21, 2018

Mine look like this.Mine are a little longer, to my hips.

SummerMadness · Dec 22, 2018

A black teenage wrestler with dreads, a racist referee, and the importance of how the media needs to handle sensitive subjects

Even as a teenager, Andrew Johnson is already a better man than me.

On Friday morning, video of the black teenage wrestler from Buena Regional High School in New Jersey surfaced when referee Alan Maloney gave him the option of either forfeiting his match or cutting off his dreads.

Crazy, right?

And I say crazy because depending on whom you ask there are either rules for wrestlers needing to cover their hair, or none at all. I spent Friday morning leaving messages with wrestling coaches, school superintendents, and New Jersey State wrestling officials, but no one would talk.

So in fact, I still don’t know just how crazy this whole thing is.

But what I do know, is to put a teenager in that position in the first place is incredibly inhumane because what Maloney did was make Johnson choose between his blackness (his hair) and his "team."

CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN · Dec 22, 2018

Handmaid for Jesus said:
That was a humiliation tactic. I am glad the young man won his match. And his hair will grow again.

Yes, but it takes a long time for black people to grow hair.

Tinker Grey · Dec 23, 2018

The referee has been suspended: New Jersey referee suspended after forcing black wrestler to have haircut | Reuters

Dave-W · Dec 31, 2018

There was a reason Julius Caesar ordered his soldiers to shave and to keep very short hair. In a wrestling match, any hair long enough to be gotten ahold of is a liability.

Mine at 1 1/2 “ is probably too long.

HannahT · Dec 31, 2018

SummerMadness said:
Referee forces HS wrestler to cut off dreadlocks before match

And before people ignore the article and defend the indefensible, there are legal hair coverings for wrestling that are allowed in the sport. This wrestler had his legal hair covering and the referee would not let him wrestle. The saddest part is the wrestler won the match, yet he looked defeated.

I was shocked by that story. How terrible! Young adults at this age especially - everyone to some extent, but when your young especially important - take things like their dreadlocks as part of establishing whom they are as a person. It's part of their human growth into adulthood. It means so much more than that too, but I was generally speaking.

I have no idea how these leagues work, but he should be permanently removed. If any other action can be taken? It should seriously be looked at. This referee had no right to go there.

Dave-W · Jan 4, 2019

HannahT said:
I was shocked by that story. How terrible! Young adults at this age especially - everyone to some extent, but when your young especially important - take things like their dreadlocks as part of establishing whom they are as a person. It's part of their human growth into adulthood. It means so much more than that too, but I was generally speaking.

And in my day shoulder length hair was common as we were differentiating ourselves from our short haired clean shaved parents. (Circa 1970) But when I went out for the wrestling team, my shoulder length hair got cut very short and my long muttonchop sideburns came off as well as they were all fair game on the mat.

Gigimo · Jan 5, 2019

If Buena wrestler didn't know rules, his coach had to | Feedback

SummerMadness · Sep 19, 2019

Ref at center of dreadlocks scandal slammed with major penalties

Alan Maloney, the New Jersey wrestling referee who ignited a national firestorm when he instructed a mixed-race wrestler to cut his dreadlocks or forfeit a match last December, has been suspended for two years from officiating state wrestling events, the state’s governing body for high school sports and the Division on Civil Rights announced Wednesday.

Maloney will not be allowed to officiate any preseason, regular season, postseason or tournament matches for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, according to the decision. He also will be required to complete implicit bias training before he’s eligible to be reinstated.

Handmaid for Jesus · Sep 19, 2019

SummerMadness said:
Ref at center of dreadlocks scandal slammed with major penalties

Good! His actions, imho, were more about humiliation than about discipline.

JCFantasy23 · Sep 19, 2019

Yep, I agree this sounds more like a humiliation tactic that came from a likely racist, power-hungry coach. This definitely shouldn't' have happened.

cow451 · Sep 21, 2019

grasping the after wind said:
As an aside, The NFL also ought to outlaw tackling people by their hair.

Why?

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Referee forces HS wrestler to cut off dreadlocks before match

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