Ali Marpet with members of the Hastings High School Volleyball team
By Dan Murphy
Ali Marpet may be the most successful football player ever to come out of Westchester. Marpet played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and, in 2021, won the Super Bowl with QB Tom Brady.
Marpet grew up in Hastings and attended Hastings High School. In 2023, the Village of Hastings renamed a street, Ali Marpet Way, in his honor. Ali returns to Hastings and continues his community service 5 years after retiring from the NFL.
So it was disturbing for the community to read reports from the Village and the Hastings Police Department about the incident. Residents expressed feelings of shock and sadness after learning that, on the morning of March 9, 2026, authorities were alerted to the presence of stickers containing hate speech placed in high-visibility areas, including a stop sign and the Ali Marpet Way sign near the Farragut Middle School playground and Reynolds Field.
“The stickers were described by village officials as an ‘affront to Israel and Jewish people.” Beyond the school-adjacent areas, similar hateful materials were discovered on several Village pay stations, suggesting a coordinated effort to spread bias across the community. While the stickers were found near school grounds, the Hastings-on-Hudson Union Free School District and the Village Police Department noted that there was no immediate evidence connecting the vandalism to the student body.
An investigation was conducted, and the individual responsible for placing the stickers on the street signs was identified. Following consultation with the District Attorney’s Office and a thorough review of the circumstances, it was determined that the facts of the case did not meet the legal threshold necessary to pursue criminal charges. No further information is available.”
Marpet is Jewish and has been an active Birthright Israel alum. His background made the March 2026 incident involving antisemitic stickers on his namesake sign particularly painful for the local community and his family.
Because the sign is located near the middle school and represents a beloved local figure, the act was seen as a direct attack on both the town’s Jewish residents and its community values. Marpet’s parents, Bill Marpet and Joy Rose, publicly expressed their shock and heartbreak over the incident, with his father describing it as a “kick to the heart.”
Residents and former residents of Hastings were saddened by the news.
Ali wore #74 for the Tampa Bay Bucs when they won the Super Bowl. “Today I’m wearing 74 not just because of the 2021 Super Bowl victory, but because of what it represented. Ali Marpet’s openness about being Jewish at the highest level of the NFL inspired me to stand more confidently in my own Jewish faith. I honor both his contribution to this team and the example he set. When someone lives their faith openly in a public arena, it strengthens others to do the same.
And “This is appalling. Growing up in Hastings always felt like a safe place to be Jewish; in fact, it felt like one of the only places where we weren’t a minority. To top it all off, I love the Marpet family. So deeply disappointed to see this, especially after receiving an email from my daughter’s preschool, which is in a synagogue in Hastings, that a full police department presence will be there today after the synagogue attack in Michigan yesterday. If this kind of hate is happening here in my safe little bubble in the world, it truly is happening everywhere.
Other residents wanted to know who the person was who spread this hate? Apparently, the Hastings PD caught the individual on video.
While the sticker has not been released to the public, we have determined through residents that it reads, F❤CK ISRAEL-END ZIONIST INVESTMENT IN AMERICA.
The sticker also features a cartoon character holding a cup that says “JUGG” and leading a pig with a human face on a leash.
“JUGG” Character: The cartoon character holding a white foam cup (a reference to “lean” or “purple drank”) is a modification of styles seen in modern hip-hop meme culture. In this context, “Jugg” (slang for a scam or hustle) is being co-opted. This aesthetic—mixing street-wear/rap culture with hate speech—is frequently used by “Groyper”-adjacent groups or younger, online-first white nationalist factions (such as those on Telegram or 4chan).
End Zionist Investment in America”: This slogan is a cornerstone of “ZOG” (Zionist Occupied Government) conspiracy theories. It is a common talking point for groups like the National Justice Party (NJP) or the New Resurrection Party, as well as various neo-Nazi organizations that believe a secret cabal controls American finances.
While no single group “owns” this specific layout, it bears the hallmarks of Active Clubs or decentralized Alt-Right “sticker crews.”
