BROOKLYN, Ohio — The former head football coach at Brooklyn High School tells News 5 he had no ill intent when his team used the word "Nazi" as a play call in a conference match-up with Beachwood High School.
“It really bothered me when they said we have people and kids that are offended and upset by this. That’s why I apologized immediately to their coach,” said coach Tim McFarland.
Beachwood Bison players told their coaches they heard visiting Brooklyn Hurricanes players using "Nazi" as a play call during their home game Friday night. McFarland said the game's officials made him aware the term was offensive to some of the opposing players, and he said he offered to issue individual apologies.
“If they wanted me to, I’d go right over to their bench and apologize to the whole team or any players that were upset. And if they didn’t want to do that, I’d come in at halftime to their locker room and apologize. They didn’t feel that was necessary,” McFarland said of his conversation with officials and Beachwood coaches.
Beachwood is home to a large Jewish population, and in recent years, has been the location of multiple alleged antisemitic incidents, according to the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland.
Many players, families and community leaders in Beachwood told News 5 they deemed the language offensive and unacceptable.
"It was just so negative and so uncalled for," one parent said in an interview Tuesday.
McFarland changed the play call in the second half when play resumed Friday. He said he was shocked at the outrage from both communities that followed the game. On Monday, the Brooklyn City Schools Board of Education accepted his resignation.
Brooklyn Superintendent Dr. Ted Caleris told News 5 he had lengthy conversations with the coach over the weekend and after accepting McFarland's resignation, he thought it was for the best.
“The school officials asked him to resign and implied that if he didn’t resign, he was going to be terminated,” Peter Pattakos, an attorney retained by McFarland, told News 5 Thursday.
The attorney is calling the situation that led to his resignation a sign of "political correctness run amok" and said the use of the word "Nazi" during a football game against a team in Beachwood was by "no means an anti-Semitic slur."
"The notion that the use of this term in last Friday’s football game implies any anti-Semitism or intent to offend on the part of McFarland or any of the Brooklyn High players, coaches, or community is not only false but absurdly so," Pattakos said in a statement issued Thursday.
McFarland and Pattakos said "Nazi" is a commonly-used play call. They said it is used to alert teammates of an oncoming blitz by the opposing defense, as the football term "blitz" is itself a reference to "blitzkrieg," a war maneuver employed by Nazi Germany. And they pointed to its use in a 1990s handout from the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association.
“That lists ‘Nazi,’ number one on a list of blitz control calls. There’s ‘Nazi,’ ‘Bandit,’ ‘Renegade,’ ‘Loco,’ ‘Indian’ and ‘Mascot,’” Pattakos said, reading from the handout.
"While McFarland is mindful of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the holocaust leading up to World War II, the idea that someone would be offended by hearing the commonly used pass-protection call 'Nazi' at an American football game had not occurred to him until his counterparts on the Beachwood sideline brought the issue to his attention in the second quarter of last Friday’s game," Pattakos said in the statement. "At that point, McFarland immediately instructed his team to stop using the term and told the Beachwood coaches that he would personally apologize to any players who were offended. The Beachwood coaches told him that an apology would not be necessary, and the game then continued to completion."
Beachwood Superintendent Dr. Robert Hardis said the term was not used during the second half, but late in the game, the home team reported several Brooklyn players using a racial slur throughout the night.
McFarland said he was not aware of any racial slurs used by his players.
“If we have a player that would be acting inappropriately, we would pull him out of the game,” McFarland said.
Beachwood leaders have called for accountability. The Brooklyn Superintendent said the district is working with the Anti-Defamation League of Ohio to "learn and grow" from the incident.
McFarland said he did not want the controversy to define the team, school or his career.
“I coach football to help young men transition into manhood and help them grow. Not to insult people and make fun of people,” he said.
You can read Pattakos's full statement below:
"My client Tim McFarland is shocked and dismayed at the series of events that led to Brooklyn City School officials demanding his resignation as head football coach on Monday. These events, which have been subject to a flood of local and national press defaming McFarland as racist and anti-Semitic, result from offensive linemen on the Brooklyn varsity football team having used the call “Nazi” to alert an oncoming blitz from the opposing defense at last Friday’s game against Beachwood High School.
Anyone with experience playing American football knows that players on both sides of the ball routinely bark coded single-word calls at the line to change play-calls or formations before the ball is snapped. Peyton Manning’s “Omaha” call is a famous example of this. Likewise, the term “Nazi” has been a commonly used line-call by football players in Ohio and presumably all over the U.S. for decades, including at the high-school level, to alert teammates of an oncoming blitz by the opposing defense. I remember this term being used in this way by high-school football teams when I played for Revere High in the 1990s. And this can be further verified by the attached excerpt from a handout provided at a popular coaching clinic put on by the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association in the 1990s that lists the term “Nazi” as among five “blitz control” calls, and describes it as a “call to alert the QB that an outside cover person is moving into a blitz position.”
The notion that the use of this term in last Friday’s football game implies any anti-Semitism or intent to offend on the part of McFarland or any of the Brooklyn High players, coaches, or community is not only false but absurdly so. The term “Nazi” is by no means an anti-Semitic slur. As a matter of historical fact, the term “Nazi” is well known to describe a notorious German political party that, after coming to power in Germany, employed aggressive military attacks known as “blitzkriegs.” The term “blitz” has long been a commonly employed term in the militaristic sport of American football, which is derived from this Nazi-era German military term, to describe similarly aggressive tactics by defensive players.
While McFarland is mindful of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the holocaust leading up to World War II, the idea that someone would be offended by hearing the commonly used pass-protection call “Nazi” at an American football game had not occurred to him until his counterparts on the Beachwood sideline brought the issue to his attention in the second quarter of last Friday’s game.
At that point, McFarland immediately instructed his team to stop using the term, and told the Beachwood coaches that he would personally apologize to any players who were offended. The Beachwood coaches told him that an apology would not be necessary, and the game then continued to completion.
That should have been the end of this story. The fact that it was not is nothing short of absurd, and represents an especially unfortunate example of political correctness run amok. Throughout recorded human history there have been atrocities committed by various groups of people against other groups. In no other context do we purport to ban and punish references to these groups. For example, as a proud Greek-American I cannot imagine becoming offended at the mention of the Turkish people who slaughtered millions of Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians only a few decades before the Nazi genocide against the Jews. Should Mongolian grills be banned from the U.S. and Mongolian beef removed from all restaurant menus due to the atrocities committed by Ghengis Khan? Should every American football coach, player, or fan who uses the word “blitz” lose their jobs and be tarred as anti-Semites as well? Seemingly so to those at the so-called “Anti-Defamation League” whose real mission seems to be to defame as many people as they can by weaponizing baseless accusations of anti-Semitism to drive fundraising for their own profit and perceived political benefit.
McFarland—who has been a well-respected high-school football coach in Northeast Ohio for more than four decades—is also disappointed in the leaders of Brooklyn High School for demanding his resignation despite knowing he is a decent man who neither intended nor caused any harm to anyone involved in these events. He prays for a better world where common sense can be restored and such issues are not blown beyond all reasonable proportion.
Finally, it is especially ironic that a representative of the Anti-Defamation League was quoted in a New York Times report on this story as having “offered to serve as a resource” to Brooklyn City Schools to “promote understanding and tolerance.” Where was the “understanding and tolerance” with respect to McFarland and the students in his charge who did no more than use a long-established football term right out of an old and commonly used playbook? Now a group of kids at a local public-school are left without their beloved head coach, leader, and mentor in the middle of their football seasons. Those responsible—especially the Beachwood politicians who are using this incident to score cheap political points for themselves—should be ashamed of themselves. McFarland is weighing all legal options available to him against those who caused this extremely damaging and defamatory firestorm."
