WATCH: Penn Student Calls For Sixers To Fire Doc Rivers During Graduation Ceremony
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- As Leonard Y. Chen sat in his seat at graduation at the University of Pennsylvania on Tuesday afternoon, the NBA was on his mind. Chen was still feeling pain from the Sixers' second-round exit against the Miami Heat, so he channeled that Philadelphia sports frustration.
Before he walked across the stage, he texted his friends and told them to pay attention. Moments later, Chen flashed his cellphone to the camera streaming the graduation that read, "Fire Doc Rivers."
Chen said he was also partially inspired by a Celtic fan saying "Celtics in 7" during graduation at UMass Amherst last week.
"It was kind of a spur of the moment, honestly, it wasn't super premeditated," Chen said in a phone interview with CBSPhilly.com. "Especially going off of last year's playoffs, it just felt like the city of the tallest hopes and dreams being smashed."
Since he walked across the stage, Chen went viral after Bleacher Report picked up the video.
Chen said he was trying to make his friends and family laugh, and he didn't expect it to blow up online as it did.
"A lot of my friends who are really deep into Sixers Twitter are like, 'You're' everywhere. You got like fan accounts after you,'" Chen said. "I definitely didn't expect it to blow up."
As far as his gripe with Rivers, Chen said he would like to see him fired because of his inability to develop players and leadership.
"It just seems like all of the stuff happening off the court, player development, team leadership, getting synergies on your team, working on chemistry, these things just seem to be missing and it's reflecting on the court," Chen said. "And that kind of seems like Doc's track record. I mean, he won in 2008 with the Celtics, but he also had like arguably one of the best teams like ever put together, especially for the Celtics. Not that it was luck, it just seems like after that win, Doc Rivers, a good guy he might be, has just been overrated in terms of how well he can coach."
