UPDATE: Neshaminy Suspends Teacher After Incident At Basketball Game
The coach of a local high school basketball team appeared to head-butted a referee during Tuesday night’s game between the Neshaminy and Pennsbury high schools varsity boys’ basketball teams.
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Neshaminy High School basketball coach Jerry Devine was removed from the game after butting a PIAA referee with his head. Video from the incident appears to show a man, identified as Devine, slamming his head into the referee’s and knocking him down.
Devine’s removal and the incident occurred with about 45 seconds left in the game, which was held at Neshaminy High School in Middletown. The call by a referee of charging by a sophomore player in which Devine disagreed with is what led to the incident.
Due to the removal and incident, a double technical foul was called on Neshaminy’s team and Pennsbury player Addison Howard scored three free throws to increase Pennsbury’s lead over Neshaminy.
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Pennsbury won the game with a score of 49-44.
Spectator and Neshaminy senior Fred Polis said that the referees were calling the game fairly, but the call that appeared to set off the incident was clearly a wrong call. Polis also said that the Neshaminy student section on their home court was harsh and frequently targeted the referee with insults for his appearance.
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“As the [Neshaminy] student section continued to yell insults at the Pennsbury players and referees, the refs began to start favoring Pennsbury,” Polis said.
“The atmosphere of this game was very tense,” Neshaminy High School senior Eric Zimmerman, who was in the stands for the game, said. “Players, spectators and coaches knew this game was gonna be big.”
Zimmerman, who is a former member of the Neshaminy boys’ basketball team, said that the call on the student athlete at the end of the fourth quarter appeared to frustrat not only Devine but fans and players as well.
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Video of the incident began to go viral on Twitter, after a Twitter user from Yardley posted a short clip. The user has since removed the video of the incident, but the video has begun to resurface on other Twitter accounts with over 500 retweets.
Devine is a teacher at Neshaminy High School and has led the basketball team for close to a decade.
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“District administration will be reviewing this incident. I do not have any other information at this time,” Neshaminy spokesman Chris Stanley told LevittownNow.com.
A source said police were aware of the incident. Middletown’s police chief was not available for comment late Tuesday night.
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“I think that coach Devine is a great coach and cares about his players a lot,” Zimmerman said. “He is a great individual who got caught up in the moment.”
Jerry Devine = Biggest Savage In Neshaminy Basketball History
— Simple (@N_Mizzle) January 6, 2016
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Is Devine trending on Twitter?
— King Dou (@kingdou_) January 6, 2016
Crazy how the media aims to completely destroy a persons image…Devine isn’t this beast the media is making him out to be smh get a life
— Lil B (@__lordbyron) January 6, 2016
