A South Carolina high school football coach has been fired because his team’s post-game victories involved watermelon smashing and ape-like sounds.
The mostly white Academic Magnet High School football team would celebrate victories by smashing watermelons with smiling faces drawn on them while making ape-like chants. They would then eat the watermelon as a post-game snack. Superintendent Nancy McGinley says that a board member notified her of a parent on the opposing team who had been offended by the gestures.
The district announced that Bud Walpole would no longer coach the football team or the school’s girls’ basketball team, but he would be kept on as a teacher. An online petition seeking reinstatement had 1,500 signatures as of late Tuesday.
McGinley said the district met with players, students and coaches last week, but the staff said that they were aware of the ritual and “they did not observe cultural insensitivity.”
“It was our conclusion that the accountability lies with the adults — that the perceptions and practices that were part of this ritual were not something that adults should have sanctioned,” she said.