updated 1:55 p.m. ET Feb. 2, 2007

LEEDS, Maine - A high school basketball coach was fired after telling his players at halftime to reach into their pants to “check your manhood,” administrators said.

Leavitt Area High School Principal Patrick Hartnett said coach Mike Remillard told the varsity boys Jan. 23 that “tonight’s game was about who had the biggest (male genitalia) in town.”

“He then required his players to all stand up and put their hands down their pants and check their manhood,” Hartnett said in the statement, which was read to school board members Thursday by Superintendent Thomas J. Hanson a day after the coach was dismissed.

All but one player followed the coach’s instructions, Hartnett said. The team won the game.

Remillard, who was in his fourth season as varsity coach, called the pep talk “normal locker room banter from Fort Kent, Maine, to San Diego, California,” but said he still should not have done it.

“Was that tactic appropriate? No. And I’m paying the price for it,” Remillard said.

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