Whenever I tell people I went to Boyertown High School, they usually do a half-recoil and ask me if that’s where the Ku Klux Klan used to March.

Yeah, it is, but that hasn’t been the case for a long time. Most of those jabronies lived up Route 100 in the Bally/Barto/Bechtelsville area, and I think their presence on Boyertown street corners went away in the mid-to-late nineties.

But go figure that we’d pop up in the news again, this time in a story introducing us to elementary school teacher Kevin Bean, who doubles as a wrestler called “Blitzkrieg the German Juggernaut.”

This is from a Sports Illustrated write-up, which cites a wrestling publication called “The Blast” –

A wrestler for a small independent promotion in Pennsylvania who uses a Nazi gimmick is under investigation by the school district where he works as a teacher, reports The Blast. 

According to The Blast, the World Wide Wrestling Alliance wrestler Blitzkrieg “The German Juggernaut” is Kevin Bean, who teaches 5th and 6th graders at a school in Boyertown, Pennsylvania.

Though Bean appears to have used the gimmick for years, “The German Juggernaut” made the rounds on social media this week after Pro Wrestling Sheet editor Ryan Satin shared clips of a recent performance and video circulated showing him a recent show. In the video, Bean comes out waving with a flag with the German Cross. A man in the crowd greets him with a Nazi salute, though other fans are seen throwing their thumbs down. Before the fight, chants of “USA” also appear to break out.

Here’s a clip of his introduction, via Satin. You can see a guy giving the Nazi salute in the crowd:

https://twitter.com/ryansatin/status/1019665641622495232

https://twitter.com/ryansatin/status/1020326804211392512

In Satin’s story, he explains that Bean is a Boyertown native but actually works in the Spring-Ford School District, which is something like 20 minutes down Swamp Pike:

School officials tell The Blast, “Spring-Ford Area School District was made aware of a video featuring an employee, outside of the school setting, participating in an amateur wrestling event. Once administrators were made aware of the video they acted immediately to conduct an internal investigation.”

They added, “The actions portrayed in this video do not represent the core values of the school district. As an educational organization, we pride ourselves in providing a safe and nurturing learning environment.”

The Blast spoke with Dino Sanna, owner of WWWA, and he says Bean is a “good guy and not a hateful person.” He told us Bean is actually very religious, with close ties to his local church.

My take:

Probably a bad idea to do a Nazi character in 2018…

I know the WWF used to roll out characters like The Iron Sheik back in the day, and he’d walk in with the Iranian Flag and talk shit about America, then Hulk Hogan would come out with the American flag while people in the crowd went crazy for the USA. Yeah, it was just a gimmick, but we’ve advanced a bit in the cultural sensitivity department since the late 1980s.

Shout out to Shane Dungan for the h/t on this story.