100 Students, Adults Rally For Whitmer Coach Accused Of Bias

August 2, 2010 /
About 100 people convened outside Whitmer High School Sunday night to support basketball Coach Bruce Smith, who’s accused by several players and parents of making racially insensitive remarks and being verbally abusive last season.

A group of female students, both black and white, formed a semicircle and chanted the coach’s name as a cheer while broadcast news crews recorded it for evening reports.

“I have coached with him and I know him personally as a friend. He’s not a racist. I can tell you that,” said Ernie Miller, who is black and has been a basketball coach for years in Toledo youth leagues. “It’s a lynch mob. … It’s a sad day.” The crowd — about half adults, half students — gathered in response to a story in The Blade Sunday that reported five families lodged complaints about the coach with the NAACP in early May.

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