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Just because he was a successful coach does not make this incident right.  Just because the kid is an entitled jerk does not make it right for him to grab him by the neck.  Just because he was trying to keep him from getting ejected does not make it right.  We all do stupid things and there are consequences.  He just did it at a game with the parents there and was arrested.  He will face the consequences.  So many on here who want to say that we are raising a generation of spoiled kids whose parents tell them when they do something wrong that it is ok and they will do what it takes to protect them are doing the same thing with a coach.  He put his hands on a teenager and that is wrong so he should be punished and fired not protected.  That is not old school coaching that is wrong coaching,.  Never a reason to touch a kid in a mean way and grabbing him by the back of the neck and pushing him to the dugout is the wrong way to touch a kid.  If you want to go out there and tell him to go to the dugout even in a loud voice I'm fine with that but no reason to touch him.  If you want to nicely put your arm around him and walk with him back to the dugout while explaining you need him for the next game I'm fine with that.  But to grab him by the neck and push him back to the dugout is wrong whether he is an entitled jerk or not.  Stop protecting the bad ones.

The coach must've really grabbed him hard by the neck to justify an assault charge. I'm having a hard time picturing the scene, myself. It's hard to do any damage with one hand on the back of the neck, unless the person doing it is out of control. Was the 17yo(I refuse to call him a kid) hurt? Was he shoved to the ground?

 

  As someone who coaches at younger ages myself I have had to educate myself on certain things like spotting concussions, and how not to do certain things that can be taken the wrong way such as having private meetings with a player, or driving them home after practice. Laying hands on them would be right up there as a no-no...hard to believe this guy was ignorant of that, especially seeing as he was a teacher, also. 

 I have some sympathy for the coach, but he handled this wrong. Neither side covered themselves in glory on this one, but again, without seeing it I hate to give to much of an opinion. I do know that arguing with umpires is unacceptable at our HS. It still happens(rarely), but the player is VERY conscious that he is on thin ice the longer he questions a call. Players can and do get benched for this.

Last edited by 57special

I am being very careful not to give too much so that someone doesn't figure out who the kid is.

Let's describe the mood after the incident.  Some of the parents from the opposing team were openly laughing at what had transpired.  There were no expressions of concern from injury from either side regarding the incident. I am speaking of the arrest of the coach over the incident.  I'm not totally sure the coach was actually arrested, but the police did show up and were investigating.

The videos you see are from news stations sensationalizing the story, as media does.  The media was not present at the incident.  What they are reporting are from who they could find to interview at the next game, which was the next night.

Keep this in mind as well, and i'm not speaking for anyone or from inside information.  Remember there were reports that the administration from Covington Classic were going to expel those kids after initial reports of the incident in DC.  What they say immediately after an incident is meant to shield and protect the school.

Last edited by life4orce
PitchingFan posted:

You still have not answered the question and it appears you were there and had a vested interest in the coach.  Did the coach lay his hands on the kid?  Simple question. 

PitchingFan, of course, you know the answer to your own question and I get what you're saying.  But, it's just not that simple.  

I meant to state in my previous response, I did not actually see this particular instance and so my comments were in general and not meant to assess right or wrong for the story in question.

However...  I went to a local JC game yesterday.  I went to support a previous player and some of his former HS teammates that I coached showed up as well, as did a teacher/mom-of-player from the school I where I coached.  For each of these players, there was "touching".  A hug or two, a friendly slug in the arm, a teasing tug on a particularly long pony tail, etc.  For each of the players mentioned, had they pulled a stunt like the player in the story, and they refused to leave the batters box, I would be inclined to make sure they did.  It may have included an arm behind the back leading them off.  I could envision the hand leading up to the back of the neck, not in what I would consider anything remotely abusive but making sure they knew the direction they needed to go and immediately.  Unfortunately, in my "pendulum swung too far" scenario, there are those in society today that are so extremely sensitive and offended by the idea of touch, they scream bloody murder for something previously considered completely appropriate for the situation.

I had a lengthy conversation with the aforementioned teacher.  She is loved by 99% of the student body.  She, too, is very enthusiastic and very hands on with hugs, pats of encouragement, an occasional friendly "get outta here" shove, etc.  She expressed great concern with this very same thing.  She recently came under scrutiny for completely harmless, well-intentioned contact.  IMO, touch is important to human interaction.  These days, people are being conditioned to fear touch of any kind.  You can't just say "did the coach lay a hand on him?" and have a black and white answer.  Again, the pendulum has swung too far.

Last edited by cabbagedad

CABBAGEDAD, not arguing the fact.  I am a pastor so I have to watch everything.  Counseling, touching, hugs, words, you name it.  Teacher's fears X 100.  But as a coach, I was also intentional also to be careful how I interacted with my players and parents.  We live in a society where there is a fine line between discipline and abuse.  My wife works for social services so we have this discussion all the time and I must admit my view has changed a little with all the stories of kids abuse that she brings home and lives with every day. 

Life4Orce says the coach did nothing wrong.  I have a hard time believing nothing wrong.  I believe he, like most of us who have coached, was wrong but to what degree.  After checking up on the coach and watching video of him coaching, talking I would say he is a guy who is old school, tightly wound, and probably used a little too much force to get his point across, whether it was good or bad.  Again, he may have been trying to keep the kid from getting into trouble and getting ejected but I strongly doubt he did nothing wrong.  Just to what extent. 

I reckon I go back to the good old days when I was first officiating football 30 years ago and a coach grabbed a kid, who had been pushed out of bounds at the 1 yard line and into a wire that ran around the field, by the facemask and  kicked him in the rear end and told him if he had scored he would not have gotten thrown into the wire.  I threw a flag for unsportsmanlike conduct and had to write the coach up.  I still to this day do not understand how he kept his job.  He treated that kid like a dog and because he won games was accepted.  When I say the bad ones, that is the ones I am referring to.  You can't win enough games to treat people that way.

I will also say there is appropriate discipline, and I dished that out, and there is inappropriate discipline.

life4orce posted:

I find it amazing how quickly the coach has been prejudged by those that weren't even there and understanding the whole situation.  Is he a saint?  No, but who in life is?  Protecting the bad ones?  Seriously?

Reminds me of those so quickly to jump on and vilify those kids from Covington Catholic.

Why?  The iPhone and mob outrage is what the 21st century is most famous for so far IMO.

Duke Lacrosse, Ferguson MO, Smollett, Kavenaugh, 2016 Election and on and on.  No one has ever had to pay a price (yet) for a rush to judgement much less false allegations except the DA in NC who was so far gone he cooked the evidence in court and got caught.  

The result is these become free shots - jump in early with full outrage - you will never, ever be held  to account for being wrong. Hell chances are years later almost half of the people with still think these things actually happened which proves the power of an allegation or bias going in. 

For example for those that do not like the Clintons - they are convinced Whitewater was a thing - it was not - but you will never convince those that believe it is true.  That was 25 years ago and probably close to 1/2 the country still thinks Bill & Hillary did something illegal even though they were were exonerated on it.  

On the other hand - if you preach patience and let the facts come out and later on it is worse then you thought such as say the Church abuse scandel - then you open yourself up to being part of the problem.

So if people will do what they are incentivized to do (and they do most of the time) condemning first and fast is a much safer move for anyone in power.... so who should be surprised when they do.  For poof of this fact look to Trumps reaction to Charlottesville as an example of what happens if you don't - he becomes a Nazi sympathizer for failing to land with both feet in a certain box.

So IMO none of this is very complicated in that regard.

Stopping false allegations and more importantly checking the mob - that is another conversation altogether.  

57special posted:

The coach must've really grabbed him hard by the neck to justify an assault charge. I'm having a hard time picturing the scene, myself. It's hard to do any damage with one hand on the back of the neck, unless the person doing it is out of control. Was the 17yo(I refuse to call him a kid) hurt? Was he shoved to the ground?

 

  As someone who coaches at younger ages myself I have had to educate myself on certain things like spotting concussions, and how not to do certain things that can be taken the wrong way such as having private meetings with a player, or driving them home after practice. Laying hands on them would be right up there as a no-no...hard to believe this guy was ignorant of that, especially seeing as he was a teacher, also. 

 I have some sympathy for the coach, but he handled this wrong. Neither side covered themselves in glory on this one, but again, without seeing it I hate to give to much of an opinion. I do know that arguing with umpires is unacceptable at our HS. It still happens(rarely), but the player is VERY conscious that he is on thin ice the longer he questions a call. Players can and do get benched for this.

Assault doesn't start with real injury. A hard slap in the face usually won't do any damage but it definitely is assault.

I was not there to judge the situation and this very well might have been blown out of proportion but if the coach really grabbed the neck he did cross a line even if his intentions were good.

Not a lawyer, but I have a wife who is a school district administrator and deals with the local PD regarding assault and battery more than she should.  Assault does not necessarily mean actually touching the person.  The threat of an action towards an individual which conveys the threat of physical harm can result in an assault charge.  Conversely an assault charge can also be levied for minor unwanted physical contact that does not result in bodily harm.  For example a coach putting his hand on the back of a player and pushing them towards the dugout can result in an assault charge even if there was no physical harm.  

Generally adding battery to the charge, ie "assault and battery" vs "assault" means that physical harm was done.  Using the same example the coach grabbing a player by the neck, squeezing and dragging the player into the dugout would most likely result in some physical pain and then an assault and battery charge will be levied instead of an assault charge.

 

Dominik85 posted:
57special posted:

The coach must've really grabbed him hard by the neck to justify an assault charge. I'm having a hard time picturing the scene, myself. It's hard to do any damage with one hand on the back of the neck, unless the person doing it is out of control. Was the 17yo(I refuse to call him a kid) hurt? Was he shoved to the ground?

 

  As someone who coaches at younger ages myself I have had to educate myself on certain things like spotting concussions, and how not to do certain things that can be taken the wrong way such as having private meetings with a player, or driving them home after practice. Laying hands on them would be right up there as a no-no...hard to believe this guy was ignorant of that, especially seeing as he was a teacher, also. 

 I have some sympathy for the coach, but he handled this wrong. Neither side covered themselves in glory on this one, but again, without seeing it I hate to give to much of an opinion. I do know that arguing with umpires is unacceptable at our HS. It still happens(rarely), but the player is VERY conscious that he is on thin ice the longer he questions a call. Players can and do get benched for this.

Assault doesn't start with real injury. A hard slap in the face usually won't do any damage but it definitely is assault.

I was not there to judge the situation and this very well might have been blown out of proportion but if the coach really grabbed the neck he did cross a line even if his intentions were good.

Does touching, at all, constitute assault? Not trying to be argumentative, but am curious. And what constitutes verbal assault?

As i said in my post, I've had to re-educate myself later in life as to what is, and isn't, OK when you coach. Sometimes it seems like the goalposts are moving pretty fast. 

I'm sorry, but the facts that 1) the parents called police after their kid was an idiot....and 2) the police pressed charges against the coach....just make me wonder what is wrong with this country.  It obviously wasn't "assault and battery".   Did he touch the kid....sure....did he maybe squeeze his neck....sure, but that's it.  The kid isn't hurt...and there was no intent to harm the kid.  In fact, the coach probably helped the situation by getting the stupid kid off the field before he made himself look like a fool any more than he already had.   Evidently the parents don't realize (or don't want to realize) that their kid is an idiot lol.  Blame it on the coach instead of the kid...or themselves

57special posted:
Dominik85 posted:
57special posted:

The coach must've really grabbed him hard by the neck to justify an assault charge. I'm having a hard time picturing the scene, myself. It's hard to do any damage with one hand on the back of the neck, unless the person doing it is out of control. Was the 17yo(I refuse to call him a kid) hurt? Was he shoved to the ground?

 

  As someone who coaches at younger ages myself I have had to educate myself on certain things like spotting concussions, and how not to do certain things that can be taken the wrong way such as having private meetings with a player, or driving them home after practice. Laying hands on them would be right up there as a no-no...hard to believe this guy was ignorant of that, especially seeing as he was a teacher, also. 

 I have some sympathy for the coach, but he handled this wrong. Neither side covered themselves in glory on this one, but again, without seeing it I hate to give to much of an opinion. I do know that arguing with umpires is unacceptable at our HS. It still happens(rarely), but the player is VERY conscious that he is on thin ice the longer he questions a call. Players can and do get benched for this.

Assault doesn't start with real injury. A hard slap in the face usually won't do any damage but it definitely is assault.

I was not there to judge the situation and this very well might have been blown out of proportion but if the coach really grabbed the neck he did cross a line even if his intentions were good.

Does touching, at all, constitute assault? Not trying to be argumentative, but am curious. And what constitutes verbal assault?

As i said in my post, I've had to re-educate myself later in life as to what is, and isn't, OK when you coach. Sometimes it seems like the goalposts are moving pretty fast. 

So in my layman's understanding...

Verbal assault can be assault as well.  Just yelling at someone and telling them off does not constitute verbal assault.  In general you have to physically threaten to harm someone in an aggressive manner for it to be considered verbal assault, in addition you have to have the means to carryout the assault.  There are some exceptions to the physical harm rule dealing with aggressively using language that offends someone due to racial, gender, etc.  But in general you need to threaten actual physical harm.  For instance if you say "I'm going to shoot a missile up your a$$ and kill you" you're probably not guilty of verbal assault.  But if you aggressively threaten "to come over this fence and kick you a$$". you are probably guilty.

Again, assault does not have to include touching.  It's the act of implying physical violence against someone.  For instance acting like you are going to punch someone in anger and then pulling the punch at the last minute is assault.  

In general, any unwanted physical contact can be constituted as assault.  Even a friendly tap to the arm of a friend.  

Buckeye 2015 posted:

I'm sorry, but the facts that 1) the parents called police after their kid was an idiot....and 2) the police pressed charges against the coach....just make me wonder what is wrong with this country.  It obviously wasn't "assault and battery".   Did he touch the kid....sure....did he maybe squeeze his neck....sure, but that's it.  The kid isn't hurt...and there was no intent to harm the kid.  In fact, the coach probably helped the situation by getting the stupid kid off the field before he made himself look like a fool any more than he already had.   Evidently the parents don't realize (or don't want to realize) that their kid is an idiot lol.  Blame it on the coach instead of the kid...or themselves

I am in agreement with you 100%, but Im not sure the law is.  I think the last two lines of your statement hit in on the real problem.  Parents who can't believe their child would do anything wrong.  

As I say to my wife all the time, your job would be easy if there were no parents.

Assault refers to the act which causes the victim to apprehend imminent physical harm, while battery refers to the actual act causing the physical harm.

- Cornell Law School, Wex Legal Dictionary

Wex is a free legal dictionary and encyclopedia sponsored and hosted by the Legal Information Institute at the Cornell Law School. Wex entries are collaboratively created and edited by legal experts.

Last edited by RJM

Blue: steeeeeriiiiike 3

Player: wahhhhh

Blue: coach, you need to take care of your player

Coach: no can do blue, cannot risk my job

Blue: son, you're ejected

Player: wahhhhh, I'm not leaving and you cannot make me.

Blue: Coach?

Coach: Sorry I am legally not allowed... Last guy who did it lost his job, house, and livelihood.

Blue: son last chance, your team will forfeit if you don't leave the confines of the field

Player: wahhhh, you're so mean, you must hate me, I'm not leaving until you change your mind

Blue: Game called, forfeit, ... can't wait to write this one up ;-)

Parents: I want the umpire charged with verbal assault on my baby - we have video proof that ball was 1 mm down and out of the zone and he called him out with a really loud call causing my baby to cry and our team to lose.

Police/DA: <facepalm> 

What is this world coming to ?

luv baseball posted:
life4orce posted:

I find it amazing how quickly the coach has been prejudged by those that weren't even there and understanding the whole situation.  Is he a saint?  No, but who in life is?  Protecting the bad ones?  Seriously?

Reminds me of those so quickly to jump on and vilify those kids from Covington Catholic.

Why?  The iPhone and mob outrage is what the 21st century is most famous for so far IMO.

Duke Lacrosse, Ferguson MO, Smollett, Kavenaugh, 2016 Election and on and on.  No one has ever had to pay a price (yet) for a rush to judgement much less false allegations except the DA in NC who was so far gone he cooked the evidence in court and got caught.  

The result is these become free shots - jump in early with full outrage - you will never, ever be held  to account for being wrong. Hell chances are years later almost half of the people with still think these things actually happened which proves the power of an allegation or bias going in. 

For example for those that do not like the Clintons - they are convinced Whitewater was a thing - it was not - but you will never convince those that believe it is true.  That was 25 years ago and probably close to 1/2 the country still thinks Bill & Hillary did something illegal even though they were were exonerated on it.  

On the other hand - if you preach patience and let the facts come out and later on it is worse then you thought such as say the Church abuse scandel - then you open yourself up to being part of the problem.

So if people will do what they are incentivized to do (and they do most of the time) condemning first and fast is a much safer move for anyone in power.... so who should be surprised when they do.  For poof of this fact look to Trumps reaction to Charlottesville as an example of what happens if you don't - he becomes a Nazi sympathizer for failing to land with both feet in a certain box.

So IMO none of this is very complicated in that regard.

Stopping false allegations and more importantly checking the mob - that is another conversation altogether.  

You are much to level headed for this forum. Be gone with you !!!

JohnF posted:

Blue: steeeeeriiiiike 3

Player: wahhhhh

Blue: coach, you need to take care of your player

Coach: no can do blue, cannot risk my job

Blue: son, you're ejected

Player: wahhhhh, I'm not leaving and you cannot make me.

Blue: Coach?

Coach: Sorry I am legally not allowed... Last guy who did it lost his job, house, and livelihood.

Blue: son last chance, your team will forfeit if you don't leave the confines of the field

Player: wahhhh, you're so mean, you must hate me, I'm not leaving until you change your mind

Blue: Game called, forfeit, ... can't wait to write this one up ;-)

Parents: I want the umpire charged with verbal assault on my baby - we have video proof that ball was 1 mm down and out of the zone and he called him out with a really loud call causing my baby to cry and our team to lose.

Police/DA: <facepalm> 

What is this world coming to ?

You forgot to mention a few things:  Batter has a go-pro attached to his batting helmet to record all interactions.  Also when batter gets the boot he claims "discrimination" (could be race, religion, sexual orientation, etc).  Luckily for the pitcher, he didn't hit the batter with the ball.  Could be an assault case since it was recorded on the Go Pro the pitcher smiled right before he pitched the ball, thereby showing intent to cause bodily harm.

New coaching technique ...

This is the right way to execute should you be inclined to do so. If not, do it your way. I don’t want to incur your wrath. I’m here to serve you. 

If you think travel has more influence on getting to the next level now, just wait. At some point benching a player will be emotional abuse. Principals will counter by demanding no one sits, everyone bats. High school coaches will be glorified baby sitters. Baller’s parents tell travel coaches to do what is needed to turn their kid into the best player possible, 

Last edited by RJM
RJM posted:

New coaching technique ...

This is the right way to execute should you be inclined to do so. If not, do it your way. I don’t want to incur your wrath. I’m here to serve you. 

If you think travel has more influence on getting to the next level now, just wait. At some point benching a player will be emotional abuse. Principals will counter by demanding no one sits, everyone bats. High school coaches will be glorified baby sitters. Baller’s parents tell travel coaches to do what is needed to turn their kid into the best player possible, 

It's already here. Some schools stopped cutting kids, everybody in the program get a letter, physical punishment (running, pushups, sit-ups) no longer allowed because it messed with the players' psyche. I'm not making this up. 

It is a problem that goes far beyond baseball, it is just making it's way into sports now. When you enable people and a culture for too long, it because dangerous and cult like. I'm not sure why people are surprised considering I can't use the word ma'am at work anymore without be fired. 

Some of you are getting too wrapped around the axle over this.

First of all, while it's true that a battery is "any offensive touching," that is really a test more for civil law suits than for criminal court.  There's no criminal court in the land that's going to convict this guy.  I hope he refuses to agree to plead or anything like that.  We need more people to stand up to this kind of abusive misuse of the legal system.

Second, I see all the comments about how everyone knows you can't do this any more because of today's climate.  But if everyone would stand up to it, we could restore order to the situation.  Today's climate is of fairly recent vintage and is not irreversible.  Sometimes pendulums swing back the other way -- if you make them.

The appropriate response to this is for every other family on the team to tell the AD that they refuse to continue with the season unless the player is removed from the roster and the parents are banned from school athletic contests in which any of their children participate.

In short, there's always a way to stand up to bullies.  Here, the bullies are the parents who filed the charge, not the coach.  Like all bullies, the parents are trying to perpetuate a wrong (their son's behavior) through threatening behavior and more.  The only question is whether we have the courage to look those people in the eye and tell them that we're standing up to them.

It's true that too few do, but that's not an argument for the rest of us throwing in the towel.  We can't let the inmates run the asylum.

I saw a coach do this exact thing to my son when he was 11, my response was "get 'em coach".

For those of you who can either afford, or can qualify for financial aid, I highly recommend military academies.  

In public school if Johnny walks up to Timmy and punches him, then Timmy shoves Johnny away, both kids are arrested.

In military school the question is asked, who threw the first punch?  Everyone else is excused and the punch thrower now has 6 hours of marching to work off.

Which sounds more logical?

coach2709 posted:

Sooooo I'm not saying laying hands on the kid was right but what happens if he refuses to leave the field even after coach tells him too?  How does this situation end?  Obviously this kid is done but how do you make him leave if he refuses to?

You take the stance that his parents took. Call the police and have him arrested for trespassing. 

"Xaverian Brothers High School is a top rated, private, all-boys, Catholic school located in Westwood, MA. It has 1,000 students in grades 7-12 with a student-teacher ratio of 13 to 1. Tuition is $21,800 for the highest grade offered. After graduation, 99% of students from this school go on to attend a 4-year college."

In Westwood MA where the median home price is $740K,  you don't touch the children of the elite. The children do what they want and their futures are already laid out. You are simply there to babysit.

 

CmassRHPDad posted:

"Xaverian Brothers High School is a top rated, private, all-boys, Catholic school located in Westwood, MA. It has 1,000 students in grades 7-12 with a student-teacher ratio of 13 to 1. Tuition is $21,800 for the highest grade offered. After graduation, 99% of students from this school go on to attend a 4-year college."

In Westwood MA where the median home price is $740K,  you don't touch the children of the elite. The children do what they want and their futures are already laid out. You are simply there to babysit.

 

Step two is meet up with the St John’s Prep kids at Boston College or Notre Dame. 

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