SF Varsity Baseball Team to Forfeit 3 Games, Remove Coaches After Investigation
Lowell High School’s varsity baseball team must forfeit three games during the upcoming spring season, after an investigation by the San Francisco school district’s athletic conference found that an incident during last year’s junior varsity championship violated multiple rules.
San Francisco Unified School District said Monday that it has also removed the team’s entire coaching staff, all of whom have been on leave since May when reports emerged of unsportsmanlike conduct.
The San Francisco Chronicle said at the time that the conduct occurred at Lowell’s junior varsity championship game against Lincoln High School, where varsity coaches were reportedly present when “alleged race-based taunting by Lowell’s varsity players” occurred.
The district has not provided details about the incident, which the Chronicle’s May report attributed to inside sources.
Last week, the San Francisco Academic Athletic Conference informed school administrators that its investigation of the incident found that Lowell baseball violated multiple bylaws having to do with sportsmanship expectations, rooting section requirements and hazing policy.
As a result of the findings, the school district’s governing body for sports determined that Lowell will forfeit the first game of each of three double-headers next spring against local rivals Lincoln High School, Galileo Academy and Washington High School — teams that finished second through fourth in the league last season.
“The forfeited games were chosen based on the standings last season and the impact it will have on standings in the 2026-2027 season,” commissioner Gail Barksdale wrote in message to school administrators.
Forfeiting the selected games will likely hurt the team, which has historically dominated its division.
Lowell won nine more games than second-place Lincoln in 2026 and snagged the vast majority of section championship titles over the last decade, including last year’s, just days after the purported taunting incident.
An interim coach will be put in place for this year as the school searches for a permanent replacement for first-year head coach Michael Sera, who also taught physical education at Lowell before he was put on leave. Sera was only the third head coach of the team in the last four decades.
“We want to emphasize that there is no place for racism, discrimination, or racialized harm in the Lowell community or anywhere in SFUSD,” a district spokesperson said via email.
SFUSD said that after the incident was initially reported, Lowell administrators were in contact with the Lincoln team and affected students and families “to ensure that they worked to repair any harm done.”
District officials required Lowell players to engage in relearning the sports code of conduct and held discussions on “being upstanders” when there is bullying or harassment.
The district said individual players took accountability for their individual actions. All players will be required to complete implicit bias and bullying and hazing training before the start of the spring season.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said Tuesday that he was aware of the incident and planned to follow up with the school, but that “it sounds like Lowell did the right thing.”
“There should be no tolerance of hatred, for those types of remarks, that type of behavior,” Lurie said during an unrelated press conference.
KQED’s Jose Velazquez contributed to this report.