Confederate flag prompts boycott

PIKEVILLE, Ky. – A high school basketball team has voted to boycott a game against an opposing team that waves the Confederate flag.

The team of eight male players, including one black student, at the private David School in Floyd County unanimously decided this week to boycott a Jan. 19 game against Allen Central High School, said Ned Pillersdorf, the David School’s athletic director and boys basketball coach.

The players believe Allen Central’s displays of Confederate emblems are a form of taunting, which is forbidden by the Kentucky High School Athletic Association, Pillersdorf, also an attorney, said Thursday. Especially upsetting to the David School’s team, Pillersdorf said, was when a black player was up for a foul shot and “they were waving the Confederate flag at him.”

Allen Central principal Lorena Hall and her students defend their Confederate emblems, saying they symbolize strength, independence and pride.