NY school district fires girls’ basketball head coach after video shows him pulling player by the hair

23 March

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The Northville Central School District on Friday fired Jim Zullo, the coach of the high school girls’ basketball team, after video showed him grab a player by her ponytail after the team lost a state championship game, NEWS10 ABC reports.

Viral video of the incident, captured in an online stream of the game, showed Zullo “pulling the hair of senior Hailey Monroe as the team waited for the medal presentation,” according to NEWS10 ABC. Another player steps in to defend Monroe.

According to the report, “Zullo told NEWS10 ABC that Monroe directed an expletive toward Zullo after he instructed her to shake hands with the opposing team, leading to the incident.”

As the New York State Sportswriters Association wrote Saturday, "Zullo earned induction into the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006."

In a statement, the Northville Central School District confirmed they fired Zullo.

“The District is committed to ensuring that this type of behavior has no place within our programs, and we will continue to uphold the values of respect and integrity that our athletes, families and community expect and deserve,” the district’s statement reads. “This individual will no longer be coaching for the Northville Central School District.”

Watertown, NY resident Alyssa Leroux told the New York Times she took a video of the incident on TV and posted it to social media because she “wanted to draw attention to it,” reporter Hank Sanders wrote.

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“I just felt terrible for the girl,” 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 told the Times.

Watch video of the incident below or at this link.

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