Donovan Mitchell, the second-year guard of NBA's Utah Jazz, retweeted an audio of Mike Woodbury, the CEO of The Nation Christian Academy, who was caught verbally bullying a teenager student seeking a transfer.
"This is terrible! He should be fired and not be allowed to coach again! How are you gonna tell a kid that you control his future because he wants to transfer! Some people abuse their power over young athletes and it is sad! Make sure everyone knows his name too MIKE WOODBURY!" wrote Mitchell on Twitter.
Before Woodbury got his current position, he had been coaching young basketball players for almost two decades in Maine, where he was born. In the audio, Woodbury used all kinds of cursing and intimidating words against Marvens Petion who wanted to transfer to nationally ranked West Oaks Academy in Orlando.
Donovan Mitchell of NBA's Utah Jazz retweets the audio of Mike Woodbury intimidating his student. /VCG Photo
Donovan Mitchell of NBA's Utah Jazz retweets the audio of Mike Woodbury intimidating his student. /VCG Photo
In the audio, Woodbury said that he has all the power to control Petion's life in school and threatened to get him back to Haiti, Petion's home country. Then in an interview with the TCPalm, Woodbury only regretted using of the improper language but claimed: "it was right, in my opinion, for the situation and that's how I felt about it and I still feel that way about it." He even said he believes Petion would call him and thank him in the future.
It turned out that Petion is not Woodbury's first victim. Emily Rousseau, 29, was on Woodbury's Maine Elite team in her high school told the Press Herald that she knew this day would come, if not earlier.
"He several times referred to us as sperm banks. Yep, when we were 15. If he wanted us to go into a game he would pull our ponytail and drag us to the scorer's table. We had an African-American girl on our team and he said if she didn't start playing better there would be a hate crime," said Rousseau.
School bullying has been a problem for a long time. /VCG Photo
School bullying has been a problem for a long time. /VCG Photo
Andrew Shaw, who played four years for Woodbury's club hoops teams told the Press Herald that use of cursing language was very common between Woodbury and his players.
"I wish I would have had the gumption to record some of the stuff he said to me and my teammates. The F-word is probably every third word out his mouth. Some of what's in (the recording) is mild compared to what he used to do," said Shaw.
Several students have already left the Nation Christian Academy since the audio was released, including Petion. At least now they can stay away from Woodbury's bullying behavior.