Since news broke that the Ohio Board of Education extended Steubenville High School football coach Reno Saccoccia’s two-year contract for his role as director of administrative services, an online firestorm has ensued with the demand that the school fire Saccoccia. Saccoccia’s football contract is separate from the one that was just extended; Saccocia is currently in his third year of the five-year contract for his football contract.
Activists say that while Saccoccia wasn’t involved in the rape of a 16-year-old female classmate by two Steubenville High School football players earlier this year or the subsequent cover-up, they say the coach is not a good role model for high school boys.
Blogger and activist Adam Rahuba hopes to bring more attention to the issue. On April 24, he tweeted that if the school did not fire Saccoccia, he will work tirelessly to ensure that football doesn’t exist in Steubenville.
shameonsteubenville.com – SHAME. If they do not fire Reno, I will work tirelessly to ensure that football doesn’t exist in Steubenville.
— adam social (@upthepucx) April 24, 2013
Reports indicate that Saccoccia was aware of the rape before the police and a text message used as evidence in the trial from one of the boys says, “Nah Idgaf [I don’t give a fuck] I got Reno he took care of it ain’t shit gonna happen … even if they did take it to court.”
Rahuba says he became interested in the Steubenville rape case this past December after a friend sent him a link to the story. Rahuba says that even if Saccoccia was not involved in a cover-up, the football coach has said some pretty disgusting things in the media.
“[Saccoccia] was approached by a New York Times reporter and became agitated. He looked at her and said ‘you’re going to get yours and if you don’t someone close to you will,” Rahuba said.
“On 20/20, [Saccoccia] said when he was counseling the two rapists his first question wasn’t ‘what did you do wrong,’ it was ‘did you blank her,’ which is extremely defamatory language to a rape victim.”
While Rahuba has never worked with rape victims professionally, he says he has friends and family who are survivors of rape and sexual assault.
Though he lives about 80 miles from Steubenville in Sharon, Penn., Rahuba says he drove a group of people to one of the first protests about the incident and has been involved ever since.
The fight to remove Saccoccia
Now he’s working with about two dozen people — some of whom are affiliated with the online hacktivist group Anonymous — and has taken on the challenge to remove Saccoccia.
“We are going to put pressure on the school board, superintendent, assistant to the superintendent, director of programs and the community,” Rahuba said. “While [Saccoccia] may not have been criminally charged, he should not be mentoring children. We are going to pressure the school board and if we don’t get a response we’ll organize protests at PTA meetings and Board of Education meetings.”
While the Steubenville community’s reactions to Rahuba’s efforts have been mixed, the activist says it depends on who you ask. “Steubenville has been divided,” he says, explaining that there is a ‘football first’ mentality in the community because the sport brings in a lot of money to the city. Though he has received backlash from football boosters, Rahuba claims the general public has been very supportive and are upset that leaders are not listening to them.
Rahuba pointed to a petition on Change.org with more than 135,000 supporters demanding the Steubenville School District remove Saccocia, but says that the online petition is largely ineffective.
“I really do believe online petitions are ineffective,” he says, calling them “armchair activism.” Nonetheless, Rahuba calls the petition “a nice supplement to getting on the phone and talking to people.”
Other tactics Rahuba plans to use include reaching out to Steubenville students and having them run for school board, calling for the resignation of each current Steubenville school board member and asking opponents of Steubenville’s Big Red football team to refuse to play against the football team.
Rahuba had plans to hold a protest outside of the school, but says parents convinced him it wouldn’t be a good idea because it may have scared some of the children and even could have turned violent if Saccocia supporters were there as well.
The activist claims that Steubenville community members who want to return to normal and protect the football team have harassed him for his work to fire Saccoccia. Furthermore, Rahuba says that while the death threats have tapered off since December, people are taking things he has written on his personal blog and using it as ammo against him.
An advocate for mental health issues as well, Rahuba says people have used that topic as well to harass him.