The coach of a high school girls’ basketball team from a community in New York’s Adirondacks was fired after he pulled a player’s ponytail at the end of a state championship game on Friday, the school district confirmed.
Videos on social media and local television news show an older man yanking a distraught player’s hair, talking emphatically and scolding her while another player attempts to separate the two.
The hair pulling happened after the team for the Northville Central School District lost to LaFargeville Central School District in the Class D New York State championship game.
The district in Northville, which is in Fulton County about 60 miles northwest of Albany and on Great Sacandaga Lake, said that it was “deeply disturbed” by the conduct of its coach and that the “individual will no longer be coaching” for the district.
The statement did not say that the coach had been fired, but Sarah Chauncey, the district superintendent, said in a phone interview on Saturday that the coach’s “service with the district has been terminated.”
Dr. Chauncey declined to confirm the identities of the coach or player.
According to MaxPreps, a website that tracks high school sports rosters, the head coach for the team is Jim Zullo. The player appears to be a high school senior based on her jersey number.
In a statement on Sunday, Mr. Zullo, who coached the team for the past two years, apologized to the player, her family, the team, the school district and the community.
“I deeply regret my behavior following the loss to LaFargeville Friday night in the Class D state championship game,” he said, adding: “As a coach, under no circumstance is it acceptable to put my hands on a player, and I am truly sorry. I wish I could have those moments back.”
Mr. Zullo told News10 ABC that before the episode, the player had directed an expletive at him when he instructed her to shake hands with the opposing team.
Alyssa Leroux, 31, of Watertown, N.Y., was watching the broadcast of the game with her family on Friday. The placement of the team from LaFargeville, which is about 90 miles north of Syracuse, in the championship was a “big deal” in the community, she said.
At the very end of the game, as Northville’s six-point loss was finalized, she thought she saw something strange. Then she got a text from a friend who asked her if she “saw that coach pull that girl’s hair.”
She replayed the broadcast and confirmed it. Aghast, Ms. Leroux wanted to draw attention to it. She took a video from the television showing the episode and posted it to Facebook.
Her video so far has gained 500 reactions — most of them angry emojis — and nearly 900 shares. It was also featured in local news reports
“I just felt terrible for the girl,” Ms. Leroux said. “I mean she just played her heart out.”
“You can’t do things like that when you’re an older man with a young kid,” she added.
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