Bishop Manogue Catholic High School in Reno, Nev., and its former girls' basketball coach Sara Ramirez have reached an agreement to settle a federal lawsuit in which Ramirez said she was fired for refusing to participate in race-based discrimination.
As reported by Tuesday by Siobhan McAndrew of the Reno Gazette Journal, Sara Ramirez said in her lawsuit that Bishop Manogue president Matthew Schambari told her before the start of the 2023-24 season that she was playing “too many of the financial aid kids,” referring to them at one point as "these brown kids." He said that would create problems with some families at the private Catholic school.
Related: Fired State Champion Coach to File Racial Discrimination Suit Over Which Players She Used
Ramirez was fired 20 days after the school's first state championship in 21 years after she refused to voluntarily step down, as reported by Nevada Sports Net, which confirmed news of the settlement Wednesday.
Before the 2023-24 season began, Ramirez recorded a preseason meeting with then-Bishop Manogue president Matthew Schambari and then-Miners athletic director Frank Lazarek without their consent, Nevada Sports Net's Chris Murray reported. In the recording, Schambari said the schools needed to be “super intentional about not supporting or creating a narrative where it looks like, 'Oh, we’re paying to bring in these brown kids to come win us basketball games and the white kids don’t get to play.'"
Ramirez then said she was fired after the season for not heeding that warning.
Per Murray's reporting, Schambari went on voluntary unpaid administrative leave following the accusations and resigned his post in June 2024 amid an internal investigation. Lazarek resigned one week after Ramirez was fired. Ramirez officially filed a wrongful termination lawsuit in March 2025. One month later, Bishop Manogue filed a counterclaim for defamation of character, arguing Ramirez was fired due to multiple complaints, written and verbal, about her treatment of players, among other issues.
At the time, Ramirez's lawyer, Alex Velto, told NSN the counterclaim was "frivolous."
"We feel very confident that the counterclaims for defamation will be dismissed very soon," Velto said last April. "It's an attempt to block Coach Ramirez's free speech. What she said in the complaint, she believes to be true and is true. And Nevada law gives an avenue to get rid of frivolous claims like Bishop Minogue's claims very quickly. We feel very confident it's going to be dismissed very soon."
On March 2, United States District Judge Anne R. Traum granted Ramirez's special motion to dismiss the counterclaim and said she was entitled to motion for attorney fees, Nevada Sports Net reported.
"The gist of Ms. Ramirez’s statements was true," Traum wrote. "In the preseason meeting, Mr. Schambari made an explicit statement regarding being intentional about avoiding the perception that 'brown kids' were being played more than white players. While Defendants now argue that an alternative meaning to those words was obvious, Ms. Ramirez’s possible misinterpretation does not mean that her statements were false. Moreover, the gist of Ms. Ramirez’s statement, which is that Bishop Manogue leadership expressed racially motivated directives regarding her coaching behavior, is true. Her other statements are similarly true, as Ms. (Teresa) Burrows did attend Ms. Ramirez’s practices to monitor her coaching behavior, and Ms. Ramirez was fired for not following directives given in the preseason meeting. It is even clearer that Ms. Ramirez’s statements were not made with knowledge of their falsity.
"Though the preseason meeting covered a variety of concerns with Ms. Ramirez’s coaching, Mr. Schambari clearly directed Ms. Ramirez to be intentional about her coaching behavior when it came to playing 'brown kids.' While it is possible that Ms. Ramirez interpreted the statement in a way that Mr. Schambari did not mean, such a conclusion does not give rise to any inference that she made the statements with knowledge of their falsity. When considered with the entirety of the circumstances surrounding her termination, the evidence provides a compelling case that Ms. Ramirez believed her statements about Mr. Schambari’s directives and the reason for her termination to be true."
According to Nevada Sports Net's Murray, the filing to seek attorney fees was due March 17. Ramirez signed a stipulation order telling the court they are extending the timeframe because both parties have reached a settlement agreement in principle to resolve the original lawsuit. That settlement agreement, the terms of which are not expected to be made public, will likely be finalized by the end of the month.
"A two-time state champion, Ramirez ranks top-10 in Nevada history in girls' basketball wins with a career record of 323-104," Murray wrote Wednesday for Nevada Sports Net. "She has not taken a local high school head-coaching position since being fired two years ago."
