Two coaches in Pennsylvania resigned on Tuesday after players on their soccer team targeted a 16-year-old opponent from West Africa with taunts about Ebola, the Associated Press reported.
Boys varsity coaches Craig Carvin and Jason Melniszyn resigned from the Northampton Area School District after allegations about their team’s conduct arose, television station WPVI reported.
Nazareth Area High School student Ibrahim Toumkara told the television station he had been targeted by the rival team because he’s from West Africa.
“I want them to know we are all the same, nothing can make us be different,” Toumkara told WPVI. “They just need to learn how to give other people respect.”
Toumkara was ejected from last week’s game after he responded to the jeers, WPVI reported.
“Being from western Africa and having family in that area, he didn’t take too kindly to those remarks and went after one of the players on the Northampton team,” Nazareth coach Edward Bachert told the station.
Bachert, a Lehigh County police chief and Toumkara’s legal guardian, told WPVI that the incident shook the teen, who moved from Guinea three years ago.
“There were tears coming down his eyes,” Bachert said. “He was visibly shaken by this; that it got to that level on the field.”