Dover parents, players urge school board to ‘bring coach back’

(Dover) — Multiple Dover girls’ basketball players and parents spoke out in defense of head coach Kevin Glover and questioned the Dover Area School Board on his future with the program at Thursday night’s school board meeting. 

School board members did not answer those questions.

Dover School Board President Nathan Eifert said Glover is still “an active employee of the school district and is on a leave of absence at this time. Beyond that the board can not comment on anything that is related to a personnel matter.”

The statement was in regards to varsity assistant coach Tyler Smith being transferred to active head coach and being given a salary.

The meeting was held just over a week after Eagles junior varsity basketball coach Aignee Freeland was arrested for allegedly having an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old female student and basketball player, according to Northern York County Regional Police.

Glover has not been charged with any crimes. But he has not been on the bench with the team in recent weeks. 

Dover senior and YAIAA leading scorer Rajah Fink was brought to tears as she implored the school board to reinstate Glover as head coach. 

“I know that coach Kevin has impacted all of us (players) here right now and I don’t really think it’s fair that you guys aren’t doing that much to help him out,” Fink said during the public comment period of the meeting. “I hope you guys make the right decision and bring our coach back. He helped me get a scholarship (to IUP) and he’s helping all these girls to better themselves.” 

Fink’s parents, Raymond and Lisa, became emotional when speaking about Glover’s effect on their children and expressed extreme disappointment with the school board’s handling of the situation. Lisa Fink accused the school board of having racial motivations in regard to Glover’s leave of absence.

“Kevin is just as much a father to my children as I am,” Raymond Fink said. “I think it’s a travesty and it’s disgusting what’s taken place. I think (the school board) should be ashamed of what you’re doing to Kevin Glover.”

Added Lisa Fink: “Kevin is an honest, beautiful, wonderful young man. I don’t know what you (school board members) see, what you’re looking at from the outside to the inside of him. 

“For you guys to do this to (Glover), his kids can’t even go to school. These girls put their heart into playing for Dover, what do you give them? Nothing. I personally think, racial discrimination, that’s how I feel.”

“Coach Kevin knew nothing about anything, he’s the literally the most amazing man,” she said. “If you take him off as coach I will never play again. He’s done everything for me. I look at him like a dad. He’s done nothing wrong. I will never play again. My dream is to go to college to play basketball and I won’t.” 

Glover’s twin brother, Kerry, and his mother, Cynthia Moore, were in attendance on Thursday. Neither could speak during the public comment section because they are not Dover residents. 

Still, Moore stood up and addressed the room before leaving near the end of the public comment.

“I’ve had a lot of sleepless night lately because of what you have done to my son,” Moore said. “It’s not right, I don’t raise my kids like that. You are dead wrong. That is not my child.”

Multiple parents asked the school board if Kevin would be immediately reinstated as head coach is he were to be cleared of any wrongdoing in the upcoming days. Eifert declined to comment, saying the public comment period was not for questioning. 

This story comes to us through a partnership between WITF and The York Daily Record.