Courtesy of Frederick High School athletic director Kris Keith ...
Players from Skyline and Fossil Ridge high schools got into an on-field altercation last week. One of the players took his helmet off and hit one of the opposing players with it.
Police took the offending player off the field.
The victim's father is also an assistant coach. He's in a tough spot. On the one hand, there's the "heat of battle" argument. On the other hand, there's a potential for assault charges.
What would you do?
1 comment:
There is no tough spot here Steve. Once a player crosses the line of using a weapon (his helmet) there is no "heat of battle" its premeditated assault, and charges should be brought against the player for doing so. Until we coaches, ref's and school officials realize that as long as we allow this kind of behavior to go unpunished and I don't mean with a penalty flag or a game suspension, kids will continue to assault other kids. Do we really want to wait until a kid is put in the hospital with a broken skull or worse before we make these student athletes held to the same level of the law that any normal citizen would. Yes there are times in the heat of battle that a punch might get thrown, and as a ref we try to diffuse the situation as quickly as possible so it does not escalate, but we all have seen what can happen when a player takes his position as an athlete to far. i.e. Todd Bertuzzi's assault on Steve Moore! I for one think that any player who assaults another player with malice should be taken off the field in hand cuffs and made an example of. And if it is found out within an investigation that it was by the bequest of the coach, then he should be held as an accomplice. I for one do not want to be on the field when a kid is not only carted away by an ambulance, but another kid is carted of the field by the police. It is time we reel in or youth and put some responsibility back on there shoulders to be the young upstanding citizens they all can be, on and off the fields of play!
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