HS Football Player Attacks Coach

It sounds like "Blame the victim" but I agree.

Here is another link:
www.idahopress.com/?id=15753

I deal with that everday here.. not with my players but with the general population.

Have one kid now in jail on 50k bond for telling our resource officer.. "Take off that gun and badge and I'll beat your @#$"

What would be the correct action to take if a player physically attacks you? any form of self defense could get you into trouble. Even if you just block and push him back or gerab him to keep him still, I bet you have a law suit on your hands, so what the hell are you supposed to do?

If you are an employee of the district, chances are covered by liability insurance in this instance. I had an 8th grader get into a fight in a locker room and things got out of hand when I tried to break it up. He caught me in the face twice with an elbow and I ended up pinning him to the ground and restraining one of his arms in a chicken wing. I held him there until another coach came in and helped me; the kid was going ape.

Mom and dad heard a completely fabricated story when he got home; they tried to take some legal recourse. Nothing came of it; I was well within my legal rights to restrain the player, but the story he gave made it sound like I had assaulted him without provocation.

However, I do know of an incident where a 17 year old high school student threw some punches at a teacher, the teacher popped him and lost his job. The school district said that he needed to use more restraint; defending yourself has it's limits I guess. Had I been in that teacher's shoes, I think I would have done the same thing, if not worse.

It all depends on how threatened you feel for your life. if you have jett lee for a kid and he comes at you it is one level of threat. If you have john candy coming at you it is another threat.

if jett lee comes at you using martial arts you can use the level of force needed to stop him. if john candy comes at you, you should be able to out run him.

the only time you can really use lethal force is if a weapon is coming at you or if you have multiple attackers.

many states had 3 v 1 rules years ago. if three people tired to attack you, you could legit kill two of them before you had to stop.

If a kid attacked me I would restrain myself and then bring a lawsuit against the school district for failing to provide a safe work environment. I know a guy who did this. He had an out of control kid in his classroom. every day the kid acted up and one day he went after the teacher. The teacher had been sending memo's up the food chain and nothing had been done. so when the court case came up and the administration knew about the problems and did nothing about it, there was a large out of court settlement.

document, document, document every thing. tape record meetings with administration always. even if they say it in passig write it down and send them a copy of the conversation with a copy for them and a copy for them to sign.

The coach was trying to restrain the kid and the kid went off on him in the heat of the moment. The kid went crazy, it has nothing to do with respect of the coach to the kids. He runs a good program (lost in the championship game after losing his starting Q that week and they are an option team and they are in the playoffs again this year). So it has nothing to with the fact that the coach is lacking something.

I did and never heard a peep from the parents. It's a last resort, but sometime you have to do what you have to do. I don't think it was a matter of respect, the kid just lost it. Doesn't make it right. If I avoid the punch, I'll try to restrain him. If he connects, I hope I have the restraint to restrain him.

DC207, I hate to burst your bubble, but in this liberal everyone is equal pansy society we are creating where crooked attorneys and whiney parents are the norm and common sense is far from common, you may not be able to find a job. Especially if charged with felony battery.

Has everything to do with the coach.

His relationship with his player, details their conduct and behavior. You want that aggressive, hostile player, and engender an environment that facilitates such, and then the kid flies off during a game, and now you want discipline? Not going to happen, shame on the coach!

I've seen aged coaches, barely can stand, with some of the most hostile, aggressive, yet disciplined players ever. And though those kids would rip your head off... if this coach whispers "stand down", there's not a problem.

Show me a bad kid... I'll show you some bad parents.

Show me some out of control players... and I'll show you an out of control coach!

Where there is smoke there is fire. Good logic.

Actually...it is a sister...not a brother..HA. Imagine that.

And as I said, I used to subscribe just as you do. And in truth, I believe you are RIGHT in your assertion more often than you would be wrong. I deal with them daily. I am simply saying that empty vessel or not, some are wired differently. As freaking stupid as it sounds, I have seen FIRST HAND kids with ODD (oppositional-defiance disorder...) I used to think it was obviously the parents too...but I know the parents. Not a snapshot of the parents...but I KNOW the parents.

Sometimes the wiring is just different...

Seems to be a lot of conjecture and speculation about what the coach did or didn't "earn" or do to "deserve" being beaten by the player, and as much about the player as well. Bottom line is it's Assault by the kid.

You know never underestimate the effects of drugs and alcohol in a situation like this. I have seen what it can do first hand to the adolescent mind. You never know what this kid was into, maybe he got hooked on something or started drinking and it changed him. I know you will say well a good coach would have him under control but that's BS. Kids aren't dumb and some of them are pretty good actors when it comes down to it they know how to say the right things and do the right things to hide stuff. So you never know if this kid was under any kind of influence. I just think it is crazy to try and say that if this coach had the respect of this player it would have never happened. We have no idea what the facts were or the background info to make that judgment.

I coached a kid who was all "yes sir, no sir" would never step out of line at practice and was all smiles all the time no problem what so ever for us football wise. Would run laps all practice if a coach told him to. Till we had an altercation at the begining of a half his Sr year and a scuffle broke out. Let's just say the look in this kids eyes as he went nuts and tried to attack the other team was something that really deep down inside frightened me. He litteraly lost his mind during the thing and had to be help back by two coaches. He had a complete melt down, balling like a baby on the sidelines once it got all sorted out. Before that incident if you would have asked anyone in the program who the most polite easy going well mannered role model of a kid was it would have been him. Goes to show you really have no idea what is going on sometimes