Coach involvement in fight
 

Sorry, I'm unable to post a news article as an attachment here, perhaps someone else can check this out that appears in the magazine Athletic Business: (Also, I have not been following site much recently, so apologize ahead of time if this has already been posted and discussed.)
A high school boys basketball coach somewhere near Charleston WV is actually being charged by police for his participation/actions in a bench clearing sitch during his game. He is defending his action based on a new NFHS rule. I believe this first appeared in the Charleston Gazette...hopefully someone can get it on here for discussion.

Here is the story....

Hatcher defends actions in skirmish - Prep Sports - The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports -

There will be video, let's wait and see before judging.

After reading the article, I wonder who the adults were that came onto the floor, and who invited them (?!?)

Where's the fun in that? :D

Reguardless of the outcome, WHAT A MESS! We as professionals in our daily life and as officials plan, prepare, and pre-game for a lot of different situations. Thankfully this has never happend to me to this extent. It would be interesting to have one of the officials point of view on what lead up to this in the course of the contest.

I think that was where the coach ran into trouble, pulling a civilian dressed police officer off one of his players. One thing I have to question is his comment about being in coaching "for 20 years and seeing a lot of fights"..that may tell you something also about his team's lack of discipline.

This case could have a big affect on whether coaches will want to get involved with fights with civilians and players on the court. Who wants to lose their job over helping their players if it means an end to their career...

If it happened like the article says, the police need to get over themselves. Drop the charges and move on.

The police shouldn't even be on the court for a player-only fight to begin with. Let the officials and coaches handle it and worry about the crowd until an official asks for your help.

We don't know what the policies are for individual schools or school districts.

I know here in this part of Virginia, most on field/court fights escalate into fan involvement.

So people in civilian clothes came onto the court, and one of them has a player down on the floor and is on top of the player? And the coach shoves the civilian dressed guy off his player and then ends up arrested?

Either that's not the whole story, or these charges will be dropped fairly quickly.

Fights around here are very rare. I'm not sure if I've ever heard of a fight between players on the court/field. I'm sure it has happened, just not recently. I have heard of fans getting into fights between themselves in the stands, which I'm all for the police getting involved in.