Coach fired, participant dismissed after antisemitic incident: report [Updated]

Up to date Jan. 9: Yonkers Public Faculties have fired a highschool women basketball coach and dismissed a participant from the crew because of an antisemitic incident Thursday night time, the New York Submit reported.

After Roosevelt Excessive College’s reported antisemitic feedback towards personal Jewish faculty Leffell throughout an exhibition led to an early finish to the sport, Yonkers Public Faculties Interim Superintendent Dr. Luis Rodriquez and metropolis Mayor Mike Spano issued a joint assertion Sunday denouncing the hatred and apologizing on to the Leffell College for the incident.

“The Yonkers Public Faculties, together with the Metropolis of Yonkers, sincerely apologize to the scholars and neighborhood of The Leffell College for the painful and offensive feedback made to their ladies’s basketball crew throughout a current sport with Roosevelt Excessive College,” the assertion mentioned, according to the New York Submit.

As a part of the joint assertion, the Yonkers Public Faculties introduced the dismissal of the Roosevelt Excessive College head coach and one participant “after an intensive assessment of movies taken on the sport and interviews with those that witnessed the incident.”

Neither the coach nor the participant have been recognized within the assertion. Nonetheless, after his dismissal, former Roosevelt Excessive College coach Bryan Williams reached out to the New York Submit to say he was a “scapegoat” for the entire incident.

“I personally didn’t hear any of it on the court docket,” Williams mentioned, by way of the Submit. “I don’t condone what was allegedly performed … I don’t condone that. I give attention to my crew and what we’ve to attempt to do to win and achieve success.”

Regardless of claiming to haven’t heard the feedback, the previous coach did inform his gamers to apologize for no matter they mentioned instantly. In keeping with Williams, they by no means acquired the prospect due to the abrupt ending.

Williams added that he did an “wonderful job with these women” and that the varsity district “handled me very unfairly” with out a correct investigation.

“They wanted a scapegoat, and I used to be it,” he mentioned. “They wanted a fall man.”

Women basketball gamers from a personal Jewish highschool in New York have been reportedly met with antisemitic taunts — together with “I assist Hamas, you f–king Jew” and “Free Palestine” — from their opponents throughout a current sport that was canceled because of the hostility, according to a New York Post exclusive. 

Robin Bosworth, a senior at The Leffell College (Hartsdale, NY), described the primary half of her crew’s sport towards Roosevelt Excessive College — a public faculty in Yonkers — as a “considerably hostile atmosphere.”

“[S]ubstantially extra jabs and feedback [were] thrown on the gamers on our crew than what I’ve skilled prior to now,” she wrote in an op-ed from her faculty paper, The Lion’s Roar.

In keeping with Bosworth, who the Submit mentioned can be the paper’s editor-in-chief, issues took a flip within the third quarter when Roosevelt gamers shouted “Free Palestine” and “different antisemitic slurs and curses at us.”

One Roosevelt participant allegedly shouted “I assist Hamas, you f–king Jew,” in response to the New York Public Faculties Alliance, a parent-teacher group devoted to combating antisemitism, the Submit reported.

“I’ve performed a sport each athletic season all through my highschool profession, and I’ve by no means skilled this type of hatred directed at considered one of my groups earlier than,” Bosworth wrote.

Leffell’s head coach, John Tessitore, reportedly spoke to his crew and elected to finish the sport early, in response to head of faculty Michael Kay.

“Our crew was enjoying on the street, and in the course of the course of the sport, a small variety of gamers on the opposing crew directed hurtful, antisemitic feedback towards members of our crew,” Kay wrote in a letter to the varsity neighborhood, per the Submit.

Roosevelt AD Kyle Calabro apologized and mentioned “the follow-up could be swift and acceptable,” in response to Kay, the Submit reported.

Roosevelt principal Edward DeChent additionally apologized to Kay Friday, in response to the Submit. DeChent reportedly additionally “outlined quite a lot of disciplinary penalties and academic responses,” together with a potential in-person assembly between each groups.”

“I’m extremely happy with the way by which our gamers and training workers responded to this doubtlessly harrowing incident,” Kay mentioned, by way of the Submit.