High school coach fired after he was caught on camera pulling player's ponytail

[Deberg_1990]

Wow.


https://cbs6albany.com/news/local/hi...ayers-ponytail

Northville High School fired girl's basketball coach Jim Zullo for yanking a player's ponytail after a loss.

How would you respond if this happened to your daughter?pic.twitter.com/CYs4IZKiL8

— TaraBull (@TaraBull808) March 22, 2025

[kysirsoze]

Originally Posted by mr. tegu

It was a little harder than I expected and he deserves to be let go. But can we stop with the overreactions of shouldn’t be around kids or is a terrible person that has no emotional control? He’s been a coach for what 40 years? Unless we start seeing a pattern of physical reactions like this then it’s reasonable to assume he had a bad reaction at a bad time that deserves punishment but don’t have to act like he’s some monster that has always abused kids and just got caught finally.

Maybe he has and maybe he hasn't, but if he acts this way at this point he certainly shouldn't be around kids. And he continues after her chewing her out along with the girl who defends her. Doesn't seem like the actions of someone who just got too hot in the moment and did something out of character.

[Wallymo]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Is there a world where I'd be fine with a coach I trust/know grabbing my daughter by the ponytail? **** yes there is.

I trust my mother. I trust my siblings. I trust my wife. But there is no world in which I would be "fine" with any of them jerking my daughter by the hair.

It's not making the kid tough, but simply identifies the jerk with impulse control issues. I have three kids and never hit any of them -- I'm sure as hell not going to let some coach on a power trip do so. I'm not against corporal punishment per se, but having consistently received smacks to the face at home and swats at school I can tell you that the only thing I "learned" from the violence is to avoid the assholes that used to hit me.

[Deberg_1990]

Zullo issues a formal apology:

https://wnyt.com/top-stories/first-o...ghts-incident/


“I deeply regret my behavior following the loss to La Fargeville Friday night in the Class D state championship game. I want to offer my sincerest apologies to Hailey and her family, our team, the good folks at Northville Central Schools and our community. As a coach, under no circumstance is it acceptable to put my hands on a player, and I am truly sorry. I wish I could have those moments back. I am grateful for the opportunity to have coached girls basketball at Northville the past two years, especially last season, which was a difficult time for our family. I am super proud of every one of these young women and what they accomplished. I know each of them will go on to do great things and I wish them well.”

[Valiant]

Originally Posted by Bump

putting your hands on a player as a coach is a huge no no

That's what got Gene Hackman fired and banned from NCAA in Hoosiers.

Yeah. I had a regret on that. Pickup basketball. Bratty short dude on my team kept mouthing everyone. Our team and the other. Shoot from half court constantly. No defense.
I snapped. Grabbed him by his throat and lifted him off the ground. He was maybe 5'2. My senses caught me and I dropped him. He was maybe 17.

Well a few months later that same Tucker got into with another player. Went out into his car and brought in a gun. Thankfully nothing happened. But my ass definitely had him banned. I laughed because dudes yelled at me for snitching. **** that.

[mr. tegu]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

That's just the thing. The dude is a HOF coach. It's entirely likely that he's been like this all a long and people just looked the other way.

That is definitely not the likely explanation. There’s like a 1% chance he goes around tugging players for the last 20 years and it just now gets talked about or noticed.

[jdubya]

Originally Posted by Mecca

If you yanked my ponytail I'd beat your ass that's a straight up bitch move.

I work with two gals that are sisters and both played HS and college basketball. Tough girls they are and if they watched this video they would both laugh and then mock anybody pearl clutching over this. These gals aren’t fragile flowers

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by mr. tegu

That is definitely not the likely explanation. There’s like a 1% chance he goes around tugging players for the last 20 years and it just now gets talked about or noticed.

Yeah because nobody has ever protected a HOF coach before.

[Wallcrawler]

Originally Posted by mr. tegu

That is definitely not the likely explanation. There’s like a 1% chance he goes around tugging players for the last 20 years and it just now gets talked about or noticed.

Bro. Honestly wtf.

Have you been living under a rock?

Jesus this is almost as funny as the dude that had no idea about contraband cell phones in prison.

[InChiefsHeaven]

I coached my son's football team and my daughter's soccer team. The soccer team was like 13-14 year old girls. I had a problem when they mouthed off, because I didn't feel like I could discipline them, other than bawling them out, which most didn't seem to care about.

The boys on the football team, if they acted up, it was perfectly acceptable and expected that I could grab them by the face mask or shoulder pads and give them a stern talking too. I dunno. If you're dealing with boys, it's different.

This dude should not have yanked the girl's hair. Because she's a girl. That's pretty much it. You don't lay hands on a girl like that. An encouraging pat on the back or arm or whatever, that's fine. But not like that.

Also, I'd never coach girls again. Pain in the ass.

[DJ's left nut]

I think that's a pretty common dividing line here - "She's a girl"

Fellas, I absolutely understand if you don't watch girls sports. But let me tell you something - those girls are SAVAGES.

I've developed a theory as I've watched my oldest move up in youth athletics and its mostly that there isn't nearly as much separation athletically. There are some that are just a little more explosive, but by and large, these girls are all pretty similarly athletic.

They just hit a ceiling a bit that very very few of them break through. So for the lucky few that have outstanding coordination, they can 'skill' their way to the next level. But for the majority of them, if they want to stand out, they have to play physical as hell.

Girls soccer and basketball are where I've seen it most. And ultimately its what'll knock my daughter out -- she just isn't willing to scrum and the best girls out there are. These are not wilting little flowers out there -- a bunch these girls are physical and can be mean as hell. And even someone like my daughter, who needs to be a bit more physical, has been pushed to the point by one of those aggressive girls to get an elbow into their back or put a leg out when it wasn't strictly necessary.

I just think we have an odd and fairly arbitrary line we've drawn in a couple ways here. The girl thing being the first but the second is the strict "no touching" rule. And I get it -- that's the rule.

But my HS football coach took ****ing glee in making kids vomit. He would run guys until their legs literally folded under them. And we CELEBRATE that shit. Hell, we do it with Reid when he makes the rookies yack.

That is exponentially more dangerous than a ponytail tug. By FAR. I saw that same coach re-line an Oklahoma drill to set up a big kid to demolish a guy who'd shown up late to practice. He used the damn kid as a weapon. And again, Missouri High School Sports HoFer. And nobody every said boo about ANY of that.

It's just such a nothing line to draw. There's no danger to that girl. Far less than we see from 100 different coaches in 100 different ways. There are coaches that verbally berate their players in ways that will impact them negatively FAR more than what that girl got from having her hair tugged.

{shrug}

I just don't see this as the strict no-fly zone others do apart from the fact that the coaching association rules almost certainly expressly disallow it. But man, we let coaches get away with WAY worse and never give it a second thought.

[wazu]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I think that's a pretty common dividing line here - "She's a girl"

Fellas, I absolutely understand if you don't watch girls sports. But let me tell you something - those girls are SAVAGES.

I've developed a theory as I've watched my oldest move up in youth athletics and its mostly that there isn't nearly as much separation athletically. There are some that are just a little more explosive, but by and large, these girls are all pretty similarly athletic.

They just hit a ceiling a bit that very very few of them break through. So for the lucky few that have outstanding coordination, they can 'skill' their way to the next level. But for the majority of them, if they want to stand out, they have to play physical as hell.

Girls soccer and basketball are where I've seen it most. And ultimately its what'll knock my daughter out -- she just isn't willing to scrum and the best girls out there are. These are not wilting little flowers out there -- a bunch these girls are physical and can be mean as hell. And even someone like my daughter, who needs to be a bit more physical, has been pushed to the point by one of those aggressive girls to get an elbow into their back or put a leg out when it wasn't strictly necessary.

I just think we have an odd and fairly arbitrary line we've drawn in a couple ways here. The girl thing being the first but the second is the strict "no touching" rule. And I get it -- that's the rule.

But my HS football coach took ****ing glee in making kids vomit. He would run guys until their legs literally folded under them. And we CELEBRATE that shit. Hell, we do it with Reid when he makes the rookies yack.

That is exponentially more dangerous than a ponytail tug. By FAR. I saw that same coach re-line an Oklahoma drill to set up a big kid to demolish a guy who'd shown up late to practice. He used the damn kid as a weapon. And again, Missouri High School Sports HoFer. And nobody every said boo about ANY of that.

It's just such a nothing line to draw. There's no danger to that girl. Far less than we see from 100 different coaches in 100 different ways. There are coaches that verbally berate their players in ways that will impact them negatively FAR more than what that girl got from having her hair tugged.

{shrug}

I just don't see this as the strict no-fly zone others do apart from the fact that the coaching association rules almost certainly expressly disallow it. But man, we let coaches get away with WAY worse and never give it a second thought.

The girl thing definitely invokes emotions in people, myself included. I don't have a daughter but have two sons who played lots of sports growing up. The closest I can imagine would be if I looked out on the field or court and saw a coach open hand slap them across the face. I would have been flying out of those stands. Would like to think I'd restrain from physically assaulting an 81 year old but he would at least be getting an earful and we'd be out.

[kysirsoze]

I know you're not addressing my post specifically and many are drawing that line, but for the record, I'd want him fired if he did this to a boy, too. I also don't celebrate coaches intentionally putting kids health at risk from exhaustion, either. Chiefs rookies have a whole crew of health care professionals and they are adults so I don't equate that to high school sports.

[htismaqe]

Boy or girl doesn't matter. She's a kid and he's a grown man. No excuse.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by wazu

The girl thing definitely invokes emotions in people, myself included. I don't have a daughter but have two sons who played lots of sports growing up. The closest I can imagine would be if I looked out on the field or court and saw a coach open hand slap them across the face. I would have been flying out of those stands. Would like to think I'd restrain from physically assaulting an 81 year old but he would at least be getting an earful and we'd be out.

the equivalent of open hand slapping a boy is open hand slapping a girl.

This feels more like a face-mask yank to me. Not a perfect analogue, for sure, but when you have that helmet on the facemask is pretty close to an appendage and there's nothing gentle about yanking a facemask.

Ultimately I'm just saying that these a LOT of these girls are hard as coffin nails out there - tougher than the boys at similar ages. And I think had this coach tugged a kids dreads or had a guy with the 'sunshine' hairdo that he yanked on, folks wouldn't be as outraged.

And I just think it's a distinction without a difference when it comes to the physical toughness of these girls.

And again - I understand that some folks believe a coach should never touch a player. I get it. I just think it's a line that's both overly broad AND not narrowly tailored enough. It doesn't cover FAR more egregious player abuses that we hand-waive all the time and it equates something fairly benign (and yes, I see that ponytail tug as fairly benign) with something akin to a punch.

I think it misses in both directions.

[kysirsoze]

I think it's very easy and appropriate to draw the line at physical violence. Full stop. Player safety issues stemming from other practice techniques is a seperate issue that should receive attention as well.