Principal J.C. Farr held a town hall-style meeting in Gus Gymnasium to address the behavior of students at recent boys varsity basketball games, played at Marin Catholic High School and Redwood High School, on Thursday, January 18. Speaking to a small crowd, Farr admonished students for chanting “Bulls***!” at the referees at the Marin Catholic game, storming the court after the game, and subsequently blocking the parking lot, creating fears of a fight breaking out. At the Redwood game, a number of  Tam students jumped on top of the bleachers, resulting in severe damage to the plastic seats, with some of the seats being completely destroyed. After the seats were destroyed, the students fled the game, with less than a minute remaining on the clock.

Farr cautioned students against similar behavior in the future, and warned that the entire student body could potentially be prohibited from attending future games, stating that while he understood the desire of students to support their team, property destruction and derogatory chants were unacceptable. “There is a line I do not want us to cross as an institution,” Farr said.

Students that attended the meeting were united in their opposition to a potential ban. “If we don’t have fans there … it could take away from our playing … we feed off the crowd,” senior varsity basketball player Jack Duboff said. Senior Ari Rosenberg argued that Tam students had learned their lesson from the meeting. “Now we kind of understand what [our] limits are … we’ve all been talking and we’ll tone it down. We’ll cut out the chants where we say offensive stuff.”

photo by Ethan Swope