AMHERST, Mass. (WGGB) — Amherst High School parents are reacting after the school’s assistant basketball coach was fired for allegedly telling one of his players to run into the opposing coach.
It happened Monday night when Amherst was playing at South Hadley.
School officials say Amherst Assistant Coach, Eric Wheeler told one of his players to intentionally crash into South Hadley Coach, Jeff Guiel.
The Amherst player ran into Guiel twice, knocking him to the ground.
Wheeler was reportedly upset because Guiel was going too far outside the coach’s box.
One person we spoke to was at Monday’s game.
“What I did see was that the South Hadley coach was pretty close, right up to the elbow,” says Roy Johnson, an Amherst High Basketball parent.
Johnson went on to say, “It’s too bad that the refs maybe didn’t see what was happening because maybe they could of kept better control over that situation.”
The student is also facing disciplinary action.
Amherst school officials sent a letter today to South Hadley High School apologizing for the incident.
good mood to fire assistant coach, worry about your own team and not the other!
It had to be done. That was bush league.
So glad to hear that this “unsportsmanlike conduct” didn’t go unpunished…no coach should be working with our kids to teach them how to handle things the wrong way…there are proper channels to express concerns…and if this is the same assistant coach that has been at Amherst (coaching JV) for the last few years…..no surprise to me because he has been a poor role model to those kids from the start and should’ve been fired a long time ago…kudos to Amherst for doing the right thing – better late than never
The Amherst coach should have pointed it out to the official if He felt there was a coaching infraction.