A high school girls basketball coach was fired after anti-Semitic slurs were hurled while he coached against a Jewish school.
Bryan Williams was coaching at Roosevelt High School in Yonkers, New York, when a player on his team yelled “Free Palestine” toward an opponent who played for The Leffell School, according to an investigation.
Williams, in his third year as coach, says he is the school’s “scapegoat” for what happened.
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Brian Williams was fired for “mismanagement” after at least one player on his team hurled anti-Semitic slurs at Jewish opponents. (iStock)
“It puts me in a bad light and makes people who don’t know me think I’m a monster, or that I don’t like Jews, or that I can’t navigate a multicultural world and that’s a lie. a lie,” Williams told the News. 12 Westchester.
Williams said he was told he was fired due to “poor management skills,” but says there wasn’t much he could do about the player’s actions.
“I had nothing to do with it. I just coach my team. I can’t control what someone says on the court and most coaches can’t,” he said.
Yonkers Interim Superintendent Luis Rodriguez said that “the fact that the coach was separated from his employment with the Yonkers Public School District in no way infers[s] that he was participating in or tolerating or accepting any form of anti-Semitism.”
A Wilson basketball during a game between the Los Angeles Sparks and the Dallas Wings on July 22, 2023, at the College Park Center in Arlington, Texas. (Michael Gonzales/NBAE via Getty Images)
The game between the two schools on Thursday ended in the third quarter after Roosevelt players used anti-Semitic slurs toward their opponents. Some of those insults allegedly included: “I support Hamas, you damn Jew.”
Roosevelt players allegedly continued talking to Leffell players during a timeout, to the point that security intervened and eventually escorted Leffell players off the court. Roosevelt voluntarily left the race.
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According to Leffell player Robin Bosworth, who wrote about the incident in the school newspaper where she is editor-in-chief, the first half was “a somewhat hostile environment, with a lot more hits and comments thrown at the players on our team.” than what I have experienced in the past.”
Williams said he doesn’t approve of that language “at all.”
A basketball hoop, net and backboard during the Desert Classic between the Florida Atlantic Owls and the Arizona Wildcats at T-Mobile Arena on December 23, 2023 in Las Vegas. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
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“My players and people who know me know I don’t believe in that and I never have,” said Williams, a former correctional officer for nearly 30 years.
Bosworth said both teams lined up to shake hands at the premature end of the game.
“Despite our mixed feelings about their practice, every member of my team acted with respect and class and stood in line to shake their hands,” he wrote. “However, being forced to shake hands and say, ‘Good game,’ to people who had expressed so much hate didn’t sit well with me afterwards.”
Fox News’ Scott Thompson contributed to this report.
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