SME Lax No Longer: Boys lacrosse team asked to remove Shawnee Mission East name

East administration asked the boys lacrosse team to remove the Shawnee Mission East name from their title — since they aren’t technically affiliated with the school — following the use of offensive remarks at the boys lacrosse game on March 31 against Rockhurst.

The reason for the comments is most likely due to the lack of administration at the game, the rowdiness of the student section during a game against their biggest rival, and the student section being placed directly behind the players, according to team captain and senior Grayson Kerwin. This was brought to the attention of Principal Jason Peres by the Rockhurst administration when community members reached out to him, asking for him to take action.

While games against Rockhurst typically result in disrespectful chants coming from both sides according to Kerwin, videos and photos captured the words of East students taking things too far.

“It was just really annoying because it was completely blown out of proportion,” Kerwin said. “We were being called the same stuff by their fans, we just didn’t video them. It’s just annoying that we’re being tied to our student section getting in trouble. The players didn’t even get in trouble, it’s the student section.”

However, Peres said he didn’t actually see any of these videos or photos for himself, he just received written testimonies of what was witnessed at the game.

Since the game wasn’t an official school event, the administration couldn’t punish the students that incited rude remarks by giving a detention or ISS. But regardless of the team not actually being affiliated with East, the actions were still tied to the school, prompting the East administration to request that the team remove the tie.

The administration is being strict about the removal of the name because it’s a liability for the school, according to Peres. East isn’t responsible for the boys lacrosse team, which is why they are asking for the name to not be associated with it, according to Peres. When incidents happen at games, the blame falls on East, although they don’t actually have control over the team and student section.

According to Peres, the removal entails not using the name “Shawnee Mission East,” as the district owns the rights to it, and they’ll no longer have their games promoted through the school. However, there’s nothing stopping them from continuing to use Lancers as their mascot and Columbia Blue as their team color or even the general word “East,” as the district doesn’t own the rights to those.

“It would just be Shawnee Mission East,” Peres said. “Nobody should use Shawnee Mission East who’s not a part of Shawnee Mission East. So while their kids go to Shawnee Mission East, it’s not a sanctioned club for us so they shouldn’t be using that, nor should anyone else not affiliated with the school.”

As a result, the team had to change their Instagram account so it no longer includes the “SME” handle. Additionally, Pep Exec, lacrosse player and senior Spencer Newton reached out to the team to tell them Pep Club will no longer be able to promote the lacrosse games in their group chats and social media platforms. Being on both Pep Club and lacrosse, Newton is torn on his feelings about it as he sees the situation from both sides.

“On one hand, as a lacrosse player, it’s easy to look at it and be like, ‘That doesn’t make sense, it wasn’t us, why are we being punished?,’” Newton said. “I definitely understand, and I think that it’s kind of a tough decision. But then again, on the other hand, I can completely see where administration is coming from on how it looks poorly on them and they’re not necessarily able to do anything about it.”

Despite no longer being an East-sponsored activity for the past few years, they kept the Shawnee Mission East name until now as the team is composed of all East students and they wanted to promote their tie to the East community.

“We’re trying to keep [a hold of anything we can] to associate us with the school,” team captain and senior Max Holzbeierlein said. “It’s weird because we’re all East students and we don’t want to be any other team.”

In prior years, the team was considered an East club and permitted to use the school name as they were being coached by former economics teacher David Muhammad. To technically become an East club and use funding from the school, they need a district employee to attend all their games, practices, activities and other functions. Once Muhammad left after the 2018-19 school year, the team didn’t find another staff member to sponsor them, so they could no longer be associated with East.

Their options are either to remove the East name or become a club by finding a staff member to attend their events. But they still haven’t found anyone willing to make that commitment to the team. Even without the administrative help, they’ve been able to fully fund themselves through their annual mulch-selling fundraiser at the beginning of the year.

So rather than trying to find a sponsor, the team is complying in removing the Shawnee Mission East name.

While administration cannot let them associate in any way as it’s too much of a liability without there being a district sponsor, the boys are searching for other ways to uphold their East recognition, whether through keeping the mascot and colors or fighting to receive promotion. They want to still feel that connection to East and keep the program strong.

“I think lacrosse is such a big and growing sport,” Holzbeierlein said. “It’s important to have some recognition for it just so the younger kids coming to East in the next couple of years continue to play.”