A Bay Area civil rights attorney is threatening legal action against the state’s high school sports governing board unless it reinstates a recent victory for a Salinas sprinter.
The California Interscholastic Federation disqualified 16-year-old Central Coast sophomore Clara Adams after she won the 400-meter dash at last week’s state championship in Clovis, California, because she celebrated by spraying her shoes with a fire extinguisher.
Footage of the event and reaction has received national attention.
Oakland-based civil rights attorney Adante Pointer held a press conference in Salinas on Friday alongside Adams, her coach and father, David Adams, Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue, members of the local NAACP chapter and other supporters to protest the decision.
Shortly after winning the race with a time of 53.24 seconds, Adams walked to the track’s infield and gave her shoes two quick bursts from a fire extinguisher.
Adam’s gesture was a homage to Olympic gold medalist Maurice Greene’s celebration with a fire extinguisher celebration following his win in the 100 meters in 2004. In that instance, Greene mimicked his shoes being on fire, took them off in the middle of a track before someone else doused his cleats for multiple seconds, much to the amusement of the crowd and telecasters.
In Adams’ case, CIF officials quickly corralled her and stripped her of her gold medal.
“We demand that CIF do right by this young lady, and reinstate her as a state champion, as well as correct her record and compensate her for the harm that they caused her,” Pointer said. “They grabbed her, they confronted her, embarrassed her, yelled at her, tried to humiliate her in front of the world, all for what celebrating, enjoying a moment of accomplishment in a way that was embraced, not only by her teammates, but by the spectators that were there and even the CIF announcer who was doing the play-by-play.”
The CIF uses “Pursuing Victory With Honor” standards, which forbid student-athletes from engaging in “disrespectful conduct of any sort, including … boastful celebrations …”
Still, Pointer said the CIF immediately “manhandled her away from the infield on what was the greatest moment of her running career,” disqualified her results, and then banned her from running the 200-meter race.
“Instead, they robbed her of her achievement and have yet to explain what they based their actions on,” he said. “We will explore every legal avenue available to hold the CIF accountable for their arbitrary, heavy-handed actions that stole a once-in-a-lifetime victory from Clara, who earned every step of it.”
Pointer said that Adams is a 3.8-GPA student who also once chased down a purse snatcher riding a bike.
“She used her God-given talent and the speed that she’s worked hard to create to face that person down, and got the purse back and brought it back to the person who was victimized,” Pointer said. “This is not someone who should be castigated, humiliated and paraded. This is someone who deserves to be celebrated.”
Adams’ time in the 400-meter preliminary round was 54.14 seconds. As of Friday, the official results have Adams as disqualified for the varsity 400 dash for “unsportsmanlike” conduct.
The CIF did not respond to a request for comment.
