CBS- 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.” 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. “They didn’t play because we wanted to get the principal and coach to the table to talk about the issues we have. This is not a witch hunt against the coach. We want the best for our kids, and we want our kids safe.” The New Orleans Advocate also spoke with a Mt. Carmel parent whose daughter was coached by Bountovinas there. She said that there were no problems with him at that school. “He was really wonderful….the girls loved him. He’s a gatherer, the girls were devastated when he left." Well, this may be a small win for administrators everywhere, but it's a win nonetheless. Look at that, when there isn't millions and millions of dollars on the line you can't just make frivolous accusations about someone in a position of power, threaten not to play, and get them fired. Seriously, what is the difference between these girls implying that their coach is a creep and the Missouri football team flat-out saying that their President was apathetic about racism on campus? Probably not all that much, other than the fact that these girls have about 10 parents show up to their high school basketball game instead of hundreds of thousands of people paying to show up to their college football game. Can't imagine that had anything to do with the outcome of these situations. I am not saying that there aren't some sick people out there. It's completely with the realm of possibility that a male coach would touch his young female players inappropriately. However, it's pretty evident that's not what happened here. It's 2015. Institutions don't perform thorough investigations into a coach's background, and decide to keep him around if there is even the slightest chance that he was jeopardizing the safety of his players. After all, a girl's high school basketball coach is pretty goddamn replaceable. I think if Panos Bountovinas was a sexual deviant someone at his last job might have noticed something. Hell, I would assume if there was any question about his intentions then his female assistant coach would have caught on at some point. You know what really happened here? Teenage girls acted like teenage girls. There was probably one completely judgmental girl on the team that felt a little weird when the coach innocently put his hand on her shoulder during a drill. She gossiped about it to all her teammates and the next thing you know, a hands-on head coach teaching a contact sport to a bunch of ADHD riddled teens, that likely don't listen, is the second coming of Jerry Sandusky. One girl, and let's be honest, it was probably the ugly one that gets no attention from boys her age and doesn't know what it's like to be touched in a sexual manner, made a dangerous allegation and, like anything else in High School, it spread like wildfire. Remember the kid that showed up to school with greasy hair one day, and within a week he was known as the boy that didn't shower? How about Susie Rottencrotch, the girl who became known as the town bicycle after getting fingered by one boy on a dare? I bet their pages of the 'Burn Book' sandwich that of Panos Bountovinas, "the touchy-feely shoulder toucher". It's about time a school stood up for the reputation of those who they employ instead of giving in to every petty indictment made a bunch of air-headed high school chicks that are too dumb to think for themselves.
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