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.
