Duxbury's Fired Coach Explains 'Origins' Of Anti-Semitic Slurs

DUXBURY, MA —Coach Dave Maimaron was fired after a player on Duxbury High school's football team yelled out, "Auschwitz" during a game against Plymouth North back in March.

The play name sparked an investigation and a report originated by The Boston Herald that indicated the slurs used to call plays could be traced back as far as 2010.

The coach says the terms started out as innocent "tongue-in-cheek" names created by Jewish members of the team.

Maimaron says he's learned from the scandal, but wants the public to know where the terms for the plays came from. “The use of the terms ‘rabbi’ and ‘dreidel’ was initiated several years ago by Jewish members of the football program as a nickname for the play call ‘Rabbit.’ They claimed, tongue in cheek, that Jewish culture was ‘underrepresented’ in the football program,” Maimaron said in a statement sent to the Herald Friday.

Maimaron claimed that the "origins" of the insulting play names were designed to throw off an opposing team at the last second, giving a signal only Duxbury knew about before starting the play. The coach apologized, claiming responsibility over his team's behaviors, actions and words.

An investigator hired by the school reported that he did not find “sufficient credible evidence” that “Auschwitz,” or similar offensive terms, were used during games in earlier seasons, but Maimaron acknowledged his mistakes.

The coach says he never should have allowed the names of the plays to happen in the first place and stated, "As an educator, you hopefully learn from your mistakes and become more enlightened. I hope that going forward, I can contribute to the process of making everyone more aware that words matter. And that we all learn to appreciate and respect each other."

For more info on this, check out the full article first reported by The Boston Herald.