A venerable Queens basketball coach says the city Department of Education committed a personal foul when it canned him based on a single complaining parent.
John Demas, 65, is fighting for a career rebound, hoping to continue his 36-year coaching tenure after administrators at William C. Bryant High School accused him of “ineffective management” of the boys varsity basketball team.
The longtime hoops master has gone to court to force the city Education Department to reverse an “unsatisfactory” rating it gave him in 2013. The school refused to rehire him as coach that fall.
The beef stems from a January 2013 game in which two Bryant players engaged in bad behavior on the court, according to the legal filing. Referees gave the kids technical fouls for their behavior, but chose not to eject the kids from the game.
Demas wasn’t required to remove the boys from the game, so he chastised the players before allowing them to play again, he says.
But administrators at the Long Island City school thought Demas didn’t go far enough. The students allegedly used “derogatory language of a sexual nature towards officials, [and] physical aggression towards opposing players,” claimed school administrators, who noted a parent on the opposing team called to complain about the incident.