Video has surfaced of a physical altercation involving youth football coaches in Oklahoma. While parents and coaches of youth sports can be over the top, this one is hard to believe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=84&v=VCNxLplrYps
The coach who put the other in a chokehold took responsibility for the incident when speaking to Taylor Newcomb of News 9, but remained anonymous and referred to the other coaches in question as Coach A and Coach B.
“I did it; I accept responsibility. I did what I did,” he said, before expanding on the incident, which began with the team comfortably up. “I asked the offensive coordinator Coach “A” if he could put some substitutes in and let my son carry the ball. … He turned around and he said, ‘Your son is slow, and he’s not ever gonna run the ball.'”
Per Newcomb, the league in question has banned him, while Coaches A and B are suspended for the remainder of the year. The coach has taken it a step further, saying “I promise I will never step foot on another football field as a volunteer coach again.”
He also took the time to apologize to everyone who witnessed it, as well as the coaches he had an altercation with.
“I would like to tell them, honestly, that I’m so sorry,” he said. “They didn’t deserve that. And I mean it from the bottom of my heart. … To Coach “A” and Coach “B,” I’m sorry. I lost my cool. I reacted in an inappropriate way.”
On a field that includes a group of third graders, the adults should be the ones keeping order, not the least mature people in the group. One coach clearly violated that and if Coaches A and B did what he’s alleging, they did, too.
If anything positive comes from this, it’s that at least they’ve been punished and one of them is admitting his mistake. That doesn’t fix anything, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.