Fight during game

[Back In The Saddle]

Originally Posted by TravelinMan

Axe to grind, huh. Have you ever been assaulted or had a friend assaulted? Let's get one thing straight.

Once again emotion is driving people's response on this.

Originally Posted by TravelinMan

The tape clearly shows that: (1) The Lawrence kid pushed the Wichita kid.(And I don't think the Lawrence kid pushed for no reason; the tape shows both players leaning on each other as they are coming up the court so it was more a case of "get off of me") (2) In response, the Wichita kid pummelled the Lawrence kid with unnecessary excessive force not letting up until the coaches pulled him off of the Lawrence player. One has to wonder what would have happened if the caoches had not intervened.

That is an excellent question! What would have happened if it weren't for the coaches? You know, like the Lawrence kid's dad. When you hear out both sides, both sides say that there was at least one elbow thrown by the Lawrence kid. Was there just one elbow or multiple, incidental or intentional? We don't know. The video is shocking, to be sure. But we've only been shown about 10 seconds of it. We cant' say with any certainty what led to the fight. But we do know that fights don't generally materialize from nothing. So what really happened? We don't know.

But if the Lawrence kid is out there throwing elbows, who taught him that? Who coached that? Who allowed allowed one of his players to do it? Could it be Dad/coach? And if that is true (again, we don't know), are either of them likely to fess up to their role in what happened? Or are they more likely to go to the press with 10 seconds of shocking video and a carefully excised story because they don't think they got treated fairly by the DA?

No matter how emotional this story makes you, there are enough questions that remain unanswered and enough plausible allegations by the Witchita coach that one cannot reasonably take the Lawrence kid and his dad entirely at face value. The fact is they have an axe to grind. And that has nothing to do with whether I, or a friend has ever been assaulted.

Like I said before, after reviewing the original complaint, the prosecutor didn't see fit to bring charges. Why not? Perhaps because the actual facts do not present nearly as clear and compelling a case as this little PR stunt would have us believe.

[Raymond]

I'm not justifying anyone's actions. But just to make sure I saw this correctly on the Kansas television station news footage.

After the Lawrence kid (A1) secures a loose ball he throws an intentional elbow that appears to connect to Wichata kid's (B1) mid-section. B1 then shadows A1 the length of the court with some sort of physical and verbal interaction occurring, which then leads to A1 forcefully shoving B1. B1 retaliates with a clothesline and then 4 or 5 punches while A1 is prone.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

After the Lawrence kid (A1) secures a loose ball he throws an intentional elbow that appears to connect to Wichata kid's (B1) mid-section. B1 then shadows A1 the length of the court with some sort of physical and verbal interaction occurring, which then leads to A1 forcefully shoving B1. B1 retaliates with a clothesline and then 4 or 5 punches while A1 is prone.

That's basically what I saw too. The only comment I have is that the "intentional" adjective on the first elbow is judgement- not that I disagree with your judgement- but everything else is fact. The Lawrence kid did admit to elbowing his opponent though on that sequence.