Suspended Basketball Player Breaks Silence After Vicious Foul Gets Him Kicked Out
It’s rare for Division III basketball to get much media coverage unless something amazing or shocking happens in a game.
The latter happened on Tuesday when Kewan Platt of Fitchburg State sucker punched Nate Tenaglia of Nichols College during a game between Massachusetts rivals.
Platt drove his elbow into his opponent’s face after Tenaglia took a 3-point shot.
That led to Platt being ejected from the game, suspended from the team and barred from campus as police investigate the act.
Platt posted an apology to his private Instagram account Thursday.
#BREAKING @KewanPlatt releases apology after hard foul against Nichols College player, says his actions were “totally unacceptable and not justified in any way.” #7News pic.twitter.com/xY1wahC1c9
— Mike Fahey (@michaelefahey) November 15, 2018
“I hereby want to apologize and show my deep regret upon my actions that occurred during the game against Nichols College the other night,” he wrote. “What I did is totally unacceptable and not justified in any way. I got frustrated and lost control over my behavior. I know these words cannot undo my wrongdoings. In the future I promise to make better choices.
“I’m not only apologizing to Nate Tenaglia but also to my teammates, the coaching staff, the University and the whole basketball community.”
Almost immediately after Platt delivered the blow, he began asking others how he should address the situation.
Yahoo Sports reported Thursday that Platt’s high school coach called him to talk about the incident.
“The first thing he asked me was, ‘How should I go about making this right, coach?'” said Edson Cardoso, who coached Platt at Charlestown High School in Massachusetts from 2012 to 2016. “He mentioned he had the other young man’s phone number, so I said, ‘You need to reach out to him to apologize for what you did.'”
Platt’s Instagram post was the first step in the process.
The coach said the sucker punch was out of character for Platt, who was twice named a team captain in high school because of his positivity toward teammates.
“I was very surprised at what he did,” Cardoso said. “I coached him for four years in high school and I never saw him do anything like this in practice or a game. I was shocked. It caught me off guard.
“He’d never had any behavioral issues before, let alone been suspended from the team.”
The Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference vacated a Player of the Week award Platt won, saying his act goes against the MASCAC’s mission which includes good sportsmanship.
Lost in the ruckus of the vicious elbow that Platt landed is the fact that Nichols College won the game. The Bison defeated Fitchburg State 84-75 with Tenaglia scoring 11 points.
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