Shiny apples and horror stories at rally for Santa Monica coach

Holding red apples, a crowd of more than 100 parents, teachers and students raised their arms high on Sunday in a salute to Mark Black, Santa Monica High School’s suspended veteran science teacher and wrestling coach, and to besieged teachers everywhere.

The rally in support of Black, who was put on leave 10 days ago after physically tangling with a student carrying drugs in class, was also an implicit rebuke to the school district’s superintendent, who appeared to side with an unruly student, rather than a respected educator and coach.

Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District Superintendent Sandra Lyon caused an uproar when she condemned the teacher, describing the incident, which was caught by a student on a cellphone, “utterly alarming” and Black’s behavior “unacceptable.”

By the time she backtracked a day later, police had arrested the student on suspicion of battery, threatening a school official and possessing contraband on campus, and a Facebook page supporting the coach already had thousands of fans.

“You all have spoken and been heard,” said rally emcee Timothy Conley, director of media and communications for USC’s Office of Religious Life. Conley wrestled for Samohi before graduating in 1995. “It almost brings me to tears when I think about Mark Black. He was the first mentor in my life, the first educator that cared and showed me the way.”

This theme was repeated by other former students, including Sal Medina, who launched the Facebook page “We Support Coach Black of Samohi” (23,000 “likes”) and Daniel Jacobs, who started an online petition demanding that Lyon apologize to Black.

Conley, who is African American, said he was dismayed that a local NAACP official had raised the specter of a three-year old hazing incident involving a black wrestler who was chained to a locker by teammates. Coach Black is white; the student he wrestled in class, Blair Moore, 18, is black.

“This is not a race issue,” said Conley. “I was once a knucklehead and Coach Black turned me around. And I am no longer a knucklehead.”

Tony Murphy, a Santa Monica High School physics teacher and former assistant football coach, made a similar point. “Race was an issue? No way. He is as much a brother to me as my five brothers,” said Murphy, who brought a hand-made fluorescent yellow sign that said, “Thank God for Cell-Phones and U-Tube.”

Murphy said that he spoke with Black while the coach was filling out a police report just after the incident, and that the coach was adamant that neither Moore, nor a second student, a 16-year-old who was arrested on suspicion of battery, ever hit him.

“He was trying to get students out of trouble while writing a police report!” Murphy said.

Gabrielle Kinslow, a Samohi mother who said the school’s wrestling room became a second home to her son, Al Kinslow Bannout, choked back tears as she spoke of Black’s unflagging support for Al after he was diagnosed with cancer in 2010. The coach shaved his head in solidarity for his former wrestler, who died last year at 25. “We love you, Mr. Black,” she said.

Black did not appear at the rally, though his wife, Cathy, was in the audience. “I am humbled and deeply touched by your presence,” he wrote in a note that was read by Conley. “Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.”

The student who was in the altercation with Black was neither named nor demonized. In fact, school board member Oscar de la Torre urged forgiveness and compassion. “We should believe in second chances,” he said as the crowd broke into applause. “We need to show love and support for our youth when they make mistakes.”

Still, physically tangling with a student can get expensive. Black has hired a lawyer -- can you blame him? -- and his supporters are trying to raise $10,000 online to offset his legal fees.

Maddy Tung, a junior who is a national wrestling champion and an Olympic hopeful, said Black “just wants people to grow up, to be good adults. He will forgive anyone as long as they recognize their mistake.”

She said the coach never questioned her decision to wrestle, even as others wondered why a girl would be interested in the sport.

“From the moment that I stepped onto a wrestling mat,” Tung said, “Coach Black accepted me. He is selfless and so generous.”

De la Torre said he expects the district’s investigation to conclude on Tuesday. “Coach Mark Black should be reinstated before school starts up again,” he said, alluding to spring break, which ends Sunday. “Not doing so would send the wrong message.”

Mingling in the crowd before the rally began, I struck up a conversation with two educators. Julie Check, 43, is a counselor at John Adams Middle School in Santa Monica. Martha Palcan, 53, is a public middle school teacher in Hollywood, and mother of a Santa Monica High School sophomore.

Both were upset at how Black was treated by administrators, but said it’s routine for teachers to feel under siege.

“I’m not saying students don’t need support,” said Check, who physically broke up a fight between two eighth-graders last week. “But teachers need support, too. I’ve never been trained in any way to deal with a physical confrontation with a student.”

Palcan, a seventh-grade biology and health teacher, had a story that curled my toes. In 2007, she said, she was poisoned by a 12-year-old student.

While her back was turned during an experiment on sewage treatment, the student, a girl, poured ammonia from the experiment into the water bottle on her desk. She took a big swig from the bottle and thought it tasted strange. Then her throat started burning, and didn’t stop for two weeks.

A second student took her aside, and told her what had happened.

What kind of punishment or intervention awaited that child? A one-day suspension.

And when Palcan objected, she got a note from her principal ordering her to stop talking about the incident.

I was so incredulous that she showed me her file on the case, which confirmed everything she said.

“Do you think that kid learned a lesson?” Palcan asked.

I’m confident that Santa Monica-Malibu administrators will do the right thing and reinstate Black.

It’s too bad that things got out of hand, both in his classroom, and afterward.

But seeing so many people holding their shiny apples high was a satisfying reminder that when a student acts like a knucklehead in class, a teacher with a track record like Black’s deserves not knee-jerk criticism, but the benefit of the doubt.

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robin.abcarian@latimes.com