'Let's go to Starbucks' chant at high school baseball game sparks probe into coaches

As the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education and the Korea Baseball Softball Association (KBSA) launch investigations into the controversy over Paejae High School's "Let's go to Starbucks" chant at a high school baseball tournament, attention is turning to whether the team's director and coaches — who bear responsibility for managing the players — will face disciplinary action.

According to education officials Wednesday, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education received written statements from all 35 members of the Paejae High baseball team Tuesday. The students said they had not fully grasped the controversy surrounding Starbucks and impulsively joined in after one teammate started the chant.

The explanation offered is that one Paejae High player improvised in the top of the eighth inning, replacing the words of a common high school baseball chant — "Let's go, let's go, hit a single and let's go" — with "Let's go to Starbucks," and other teammates thoughtlessly joined in.

Video footage that spread on social media shows multiple Paejae High students chanting "Let's go, let's go, let's go to Starbucks" in unison toward the Gwangju Jeil High School (Gwangju Ilgo) dugout, with synchronized gestures and clapping. One player shouted "Tank Day" loudly. The circumstances were more than enough to raise suspicion that the chant had been prepared in advance. It reportedly continued for about two minutes.

It was not the Paejae High coaching staff but the Gwangju Ilgo side that put a stop to the chanting. Gwangju Ilgo's coaches protested loudly — "What do you think you're doing?", "Why are you bringing up Starbucks?" and "We've been holding back this whole time" — and the umpires then issued a caution to Paejae High, bringing the situation to a close.

The incident occurred during the 81st Cheongrong Flag National High School Baseball Championship and Weekend League Grand Finals match between Gwangju Jeil High School and Paejae High School, held Sunday at Mokdong Baseball Stadium in Yangcheon-gu, Seoul.

The "Let's go to Starbucks" chant is widely read as a regional taunt evoking Starbucks Korea's so-called "May 18 Tank Day" event, which drew intense public criticism. Starbucks Korea ran a promotional discount on a tank-shaped tumbler on the anniversary of the May 18 Democratization Movement and used the phrase "Thud on the desk!" — a reference seen as mocking the 1987 death of democracy activist Park Jong-chul.

The fallout spread rapidly. The Paejae Hakdang Alumni Association said Tuesday the incident "must not be dismissed as an isolated act of misconduct" and demanded a thorough investigation and strict accountability. The three main May 18 organizations — the Bereaved Families Association, the Wounded Persons Association and the Meritorious Persons Association — along with the May 18 Memorial Foundation all issued statements of condemnation. Teachers' organizations followed, urging the government to draw up a pan-government response to historical distortion and what they called a "far-right play culture."

The Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union criticized the incident, saying it was "an anti-historical act that trivializes the noble history of democracy, one that discards even the most basic spirit of sportsmanship — and the fact that not a single coach on the scene stepped in to stop it lays bare a complete failure of educational duty." The Secondary School Teachers' Union also urged the government and education authorities to develop a society-wide response, saying "the problem cannot be solved by blaming individual students while ignoring the social environment in which hatred and distorted information are consumed like entertainment."

Across the board, the message is the same: this is not a simple case of teenage misbehavior or a minor incident, but a failure by the adult educators who allowed far-right mockery and hate speech to take root in schools.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education plans to determine the level of disciplinary action to recommend against school officials after investigating whether coaches intervened to stop the inappropriate chant and how the baseball team was being supervised. The office also said it will strengthen education on eliminating hate and discriminatory language at sporting venues and on historical awareness across all Seoul schools that operate athletic programs.

The KBSA said it will convene its Sports Ethics Committee in the near future to begin disciplinary proceedings. Article 25 of the KBSA Sports Ethics Committee regulations lists as grounds for discipline conduct that seriously damages the dignity of athletes or causes public controversy.

The committee will deliberate and determine both the targets and the severity of any sanctions. Coaching staff who bear responsibility for managing the team are also expected to be included in the disciplinary review, with penalties such as suspension from competition or disqualification anticipated depending on the gravity of the offense.

Gwangju Ilgo director Jo Yun-chae told Yonhap News Agency after the game that the chant was "mockery that was hard to comprehend and could leave deep scars on our students." He added that he had asked the umpires to intervene at the time, reported the matter to the association, and stressed that such an incident must never happen again.

Gwangju Ilgo principal Lee Kyu-youn also delivered a letter of protest to the KBSA on Tuesday.

Paejae High director Kwon O-young told Yonhap that "the students committed a serious wrong, and the adults who failed to educate them properly bear great responsibility." Kwon and his coaching staff are said to have visited the Gwangju Jeil High dugout after the game to apologize.

In a public apology, Paejae High announced it would refer the students involved to its student life education committee for strict punishment in accordance with school rules, and would conduct special education sessions on sportsmanship and human rights awareness for the entire baseball team.