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Ross Kelly of CBS Sports is reporting members of a girls basketball team have been booted after making complaints against their coach who they said was too “touchy feely.” Kelly writes:
“Seven girls from a high school basketball powerhouse in Louisiana were kicked off their team after complaining about inappropriate behavior from their coach. The girls are students of Salmen High School in Slidell who won the state championship in both 2013 and 2014. The coach, Panos Bountovinas, is in his first season with the team and was accused by the girls for being too ‘touchy-feely’. Here is what Kayla Sibley, one of the dismissed players, said about their new coach to the New Orleans Advocate:
“I felt uncomfortable around him on and off the court because he was very feely. Hand on the shoulders and other places and stuff. It made me feel uncomfortable. I never had a touchy-feely coach before. I felt uncomfortable…There were two games this season when (female assistant coach Wendy Stampley) told him to get out of the locker room while we were dressing. He hesitated. (Previous) coach (Kevin) Anderson last year never had that problem. Coach Bountovinas was just standing there. It took him a while to get out. This has happened more than once.”
The girls felt that their complaints to school administrators were falling on deaf ears so they refused to show up for a recent road game in protest. That prompted the school to dismiss the girls and they also launched an investigation into the alleged behavior. The school then ruled that the allegations were unfounded and released this statement:
A thorough investigation by the St. Tammany Parish Public School System has found that allegations brought up in regards to the Salmen High Girls Basketball Coach are unfounded.”
TBW commentary: Interesting. We can’t imagine a scenario where a championship all-white girls team complaining of inappropriate touching by a new African-American male coach would go unnoticed or unpunished. A male coach of any race, lingering in a girls locker room and being yelled at by an adult female assistant coach for doing so should be sufficient evidence that this coach has boundary issues at best and is a pedophile at worst, neither of which is appropriate or acceptable in an educational or sports setting.
Read more at CBS Sports.
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