New York
New York Girls’ Basketball Coach Fired After Pulling Player’s Ponytail
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.
According to MaxPreps, a website that tracks high school sports rosters, the head coach for the team is Jim Zullo. The player appears to be a high school senior based on her jersey number.
In a statement on Sunday, Mr. Zullo, who coached the team for the past two years, apologized to the player, her family, the team, the school district and the community.
“I deeply regret my behavior following the loss to LaFargeville Friday night in the Class D state championship game,” he said, adding: “As a coach, under no circumstance is it acceptable to put my hands on a player, and I am truly sorry. I wish I could have those moments back.”
Mr. Zullo told News10 ABC that before the episode, the player had directed an expletive at him when he instructed her to shake hands with the opposing team.
Alyssa Leroux, 31, of Watertown, N.Y., was watching the broadcast of the game with her family on Friday. The placement of the team from LaFargeville, which is about 90 miles north of Syracuse, in the championship was a “big deal” in the community, she said.
At the very end of the game, as Northville’s six-point loss was finalized, she thought she saw something strange. Then she got a text from a friend who asked her if she “saw that coach pull that girl’s hair.”
She replayed the broadcast and confirmed it. Aghast, Ms. Leroux wanted to draw attention to it. She took a video from the television showing the episode and posted it to Facebook.
Her video so far has gained 500 reactions — most of them angry emojis — and nearly 900 shares. It was also featured in local news reports
“I just felt terrible for the girl,” Ms. 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 added.
‘Part of the job’
Edwin Guity was at the controls of a southbound D train last December, rolling through the Bronx, when suddenly someone was on the tracks in front of him.
He jammed on the emergency brake, but it was too late. The man had gone under the wheels.
Stumbling over words, Mr. Guity radioed the dispatcher and then did what the rules require of every train operator involved in such an incident. He got out of the cab and went looking for the person he had struck.
“I didn’t want to do it,” Mr. Guity said later. “But this is a part of the job.”
He found the man pinned beneath the third car. Paramedics pulled him out, but the man died at the hospital. After that, Mr. Guity wrestled with what to do next.
A 32-year-old who had once lived in a family shelter with his parents, he viewed the job as paying well and offering a rare chance at upward mobility. It also helped cover the costs of his family’s groceries and rent in the three-bedroom apartment they shared in Brooklyn.
But striking the man with the train had shaken him more than perhaps any other experience in his life, and the idea of returning to work left him feeling paralyzed.
Edwin Guity was prescribed exposure therapy after his train struck a man on the tracks.
Hundreds of train operators have found themselves in Mr. Guity’s position over the years.
And for just as long, there has been a path through the state workers’ compensation program to receiving substantive treatment to help them cope. But New York’s train operators say that their employer, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has done too little to make them aware of that option.
After Mr. Guity’s incident, no official told him of that type of assistance, he said. Instead, they gave him the option of going back to work right away.
But Mr. Guity was lucky. He had a friend who had been through the same experience and who coached him on getting help — first through a six-week program and then, with the assistance of a lawyer, through an experienced specialist.
The specialist prescribed a six-month exposure therapy program to gradually reintroduce Mr. Guity to the subway.
His first day back at the controls of a passenger train was on Thanksgiving. Once again, he was driving on the D line — the same route he had been traveling on the day of the fatal accident.
M.T.A. representatives insisted that New York train operators involved in strikes are made aware of all options for getting treatment, but they declined to answer specific questions about how the agency ensures that drivers get the help they need.
In an interview, the president of the M.T.A. division that runs the subway, Demetrius Crichlow, said all train operators are fully briefed on the resources available to them during their job orientation.
“I really have faith in our process,” Mr. Crichlow said.
Still, other transit systems — all of which are smaller than New York’s — appear to do a better job of ensuring that operators like Mr. Guity take advantage of the services available to them, according to records and interviews.
A Times analysis shows that the incidents were on the rise in New York City’s system even as they were falling in all other American transit systems.
An Uptick in Subway Strikes
San Francisco’s system provides 24-hour access to licensed therapists through a third-party provider.
Los Angeles proactively reaches out to its operators on a regular basis to remind them of workers’ compensation options and other resources.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has made it a goal to increase engagement with its employee assistance program.
The M.T.A. says it offers some version of most of these services.
But in interviews with more than two dozen subway operators who have been involved in train strikes, only one said he was aware of all those resources, and state records suggest most drivers of trains that strike people are not taking full advantage of them.
“It’s the M.T.A.’s responsibility to assist the employee both mentally and physically after these horrific events occur,” the president of the union that represents New York City transit workers, John V. Chiarello, said in a statement, “but it is a constant struggle trying to get the M.T.A. to do the right thing.”
new video loaded: Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid
transcript
transcript
Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid
Nearly 200 protesters tried to block federal agents from leaving a parking garage in Lower Manhattan on Saturday. The confrontation appeared to prevent a possible ICE raid nearby, and led to violent clashes between the police and protesters.
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