Police are investigating sexual abuse and harassment allegations made by a teacher against former University of Arizona and NBA player Mike Bibby, according to officials in the suburban Phoenix school district where he had been a high school coach.

Paradise Valley Unified School District officials said Tuesday that Bibby was terminated from his coaching position at Shadow Mountain High School after they received a copy of a restraining order a teacher brought against him.

“Upon receipt of the Injunction Against Harassment, PVSchools notified Mr. Bibby that his volunteer status had changed from eligible to ineligible, pending the outcomes of the Phoenix PD and internal investigations,” district spokeswoman Becky Kelbaugh said in an emailed statement.

She declined to comment on whether Bibby had been a volunteer coach during his entire six-year stint.

The district first became aware of the allegations on Feb. 11 but stopped an internal investigation at the request of Phoenix police three days later, according to Kelbaugh. Officials plan to resume their probe once the police investigation is completed.

Meanwhile, Bibby was coaching as recently as Saturday when the boys’ basketball team won its fourth consecutive state championship.

A Phoenix municipal court granted the restraining order to a Shadow Mountain teacher last Friday, The Arizona Republic reported. The teacher said Bibby groped her and rubbed against her after pulling her into his car on school grounds in February 2017, according to the document.

The teacher reported the allegations to the school’s resource officer on Feb. 13, according to the document. The district said in a statement that it would not release additional information about the teacher, citing privacy protection.

The allegation: Grabbed and groped

The teacher alleges in the restraining order that in February 2017 she was walking outside toward her classroom when she spotted Bibby driving on campus. She did not know him personally, she wrote. 

He gestured toward her. She walked to the driver’s side of the car as he swung open the door and jumped out.

According to the order, Bibby picked her up “around the hips” and carried her into the driver’s seat, her head on the console and her legs splayed out the open door as he laid on top of her. She smelled alcohol on his breath, she wrote.

He started to rub his body and genitals on her, groping her, she wrote, and he told her, “What I could do to you.”

She slid out from underneath him and moved toward the main doors of one of the school buildings, and he followed, she wrote in the restraining order.

As two staff members looked on, he held her around her waist, hugged her, rubbed his erect penis against her, and made sexually explicit statements, she wrote. She said she tried to push him away. 

She wrote that she was “in shock, in fear, intimidated by his actions, afraid of him as he smelled of alcohol.”

A reported conversation in a classroom

A few days after that, Bibby passed her classroom doorway twice, she wrote in the restraining order.

The next day, he walked into her classroom uninvited and complimented some of her classroom’s decorations before leaving.

A day later, she noticed Bibby standing outside her classroom and told him that they needed to talk, according to the restraining order. They sat in her classroom; she wrote that she felt safe enough to close her classroom door because a colleague aware of what had happened was across the hall.

The teacher told Bibby, according to the restraining order, that he was “out of line” and that he had sexually abused her. He responded that he had been drinking that day and told her she was a “beautiful and nice person,” according to the document. He told her he wanted to date her.

She said she wasn’t interested and for him to stay away. He asked her if she was going to “tell” and she said no because she was thinking of his players.

She also reported in the document another incident in October 2018, when Bibby again stood outside her classroom door.

School district pledges cooperation

Kelbaugh wrote that the district conducts “thorough background investigations for all employees and volunteers, including a notarized criminal affidavit, background check and fingerprint clearance.” 

She wrote that the district’s “first priority” is the safety and well-being of staff and students.

“We take all allegations of misconduct very seriously and work in cooperation with law enforcement on all police matters,” she wrot

Bibby referred questions to his attorney, Donald Harris.

“I can say with pretty much certainty this alleged incident didn’t happen and that will be shown down the road,” Harris said. “Michael Bibby did not participate in a sexual assault of any way, shape or form that was alleged by this lady two years ago.”

The Phoenix Police Department has confirmed it is investigating allegations involving staff at Shadow Mountain. Sgt. Vince Lewis, a police spokesman, did not name the people involved or describe the allegations.

Bibby played on Shadow Mountain’s first state championship basketball team as a student in 1996. He went on to the University of Arizona, where he helped lead the Wildcats to their only national championship in 1997.

He was drafted by the Vancouver Grizzlies the next year. Bibby played in the NBA from 1998 to 2012, including stints with Vancouver, Sacramento and Atlanta.