Anonymous letters and threats: How racism came to stalk US youth soccer

For players as young as eight on Idaho’s Juniors FC, the possibility of abuse when they step on the field is very real. And they are from from unique

Jeromy Tarkon, a youth soccer coach in Boise, Idaho, walked out to his car on a Sunday morning this past January and discovered a plastic-wrapped letter sitting on its windshield. “It’s because of liberals like you,” the letter began, “that our state is full of nigers [sic] and wetbacks.”

The anonymous letter writer said one young black player on Tarkon’s club team, Juniors FC, had “made the field unclean when he stepped on it,” and how, if he wasn’t careful, Tarkon himself might one day soon “piss off the wrong parent or families”.

Tarkon, a white military veteran originally from California, could have accepted a personal attack, but racially abusing the eight- and nine-year-old children on his team was more abuse than he was willing to tolerate.

After consulting with his assistant coaches – all of whom come from immigrant backgrounds – Tarkon decided to publish the letter on the team’s Facebook page and go public with the story.

Tarkon’s team, though, had been the victim of racial abuse before. In one incident last year, Juniors FC players were taunted by the parents from an opposing team as they walked out onto the field for a game. “Here come the future convicts,” some parents shouted loud enough for the Juniors FC coaches to hear. “Watch out for your wallets.” In two other separate incidents, Tarkon says that he has heard parents from opposing teams aim the n-word at his players.

Tarkon had previously believed that comments like these weren’t worth reporting to the Idaho Youth Soccer Association (IYSA), the state’s governing body and the only institution with the power to levy punishments. He and his assistants figured that their players could respond with their play on the field and that, if the incident was bad enough, they could work something out with the club of the offending party, a process outlined in the IYSA’s policies.

“Maybe I haven’t been proactive enough and the reason why is I know we don’t want to get people more mad than they already are,” Tarkon told the Guardian.

Related: 'It’s only working for the white kids': American soccer's diversity problem

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