Youth game ends with adult knifing
Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
The 7- and 8-year-old boys on the youth basketball league teams were shaking
hands and telling their opponents "good game."
A few feet away, the referee was slashing the coach with a knife.
The coach makes a living upholding the law. The referee makes his living
upholding God's law.
This latest incident of violence over youth sports, which erupted after a
hard-fought basketball game, will now be played out in a Fayette County
courtroom.
Baptist minister Oliver Lewis Wood, acting as referee, is accused of knifing
coach Jerry Sweeney, a Fulton County marshal, at a basketball tournament
Tuesday night in Fayetteville's Spring Hill Elementary School gym.
Stunned players and their parents watched as the coach was whisked away in an
ambulance and Fayetteville police arrested the referee.
"I was real scared," said Colt Barron, 8. "I just stayed in there until
somebody said you need to get out, the police are coming."
Parents and coaches sign a pledge to keep youth sports fun and safe. Recreation
officials are investigating whether those good-behavior promises are adequate
safeguards against a surge in youth sports violence.
Fayette County schools, which provide the gyms for the league to use, may slam
the doors shut on recreational basketball games.
Sweeney, 48, received 17 stitches in his slashed left arm. Wood, 46, minister
of Elim Baptist Church in Newnan, was released from the Fayette County Jail on
$55,000 bail about 8 p.m. Wednesday.
Wood is charged with aggravated assault and bringing a weapon onto school
property.
Carlos Garza, Fayette County Youth Basketball Association director, called the
knifing an isolated incident.
Garza lamented comments by school officials who are reviewing whether to allow
school gyms to be used by outside organizations. The county recreation league
relies on school gymnasiums for the 800 children who play youth basketball.
"We are certainly taking all the steps we can to prevent this sort of thing,"
Garza said.
Volunteer coaches are certified by the National Youth Sports Coaches
Association, Garza said. They must sign a code of ethics pledging to provide a
safe environment and to put players' emotional and physical well-being above
the desire to win. Parents, likewise, must sign a form vowing to make youth
sports fun for their children.
"Maybe we have to go beyond that," Garza said.
The tournament games have been temporarily postponed and an emergency meeting
of the youth basketball association will be convened, Garza said.
During the past three years in metro Atlanta, a parent struck a coach with a
metal bat, a parent was shot after complaining to a coach about his son's lack
of playing time, fans and coaches brawled at a baseball game, and two mothers
fought over a first-base call.
A horrific national example of youth sports violence occurred in July. A
Massachussetts parent beat another father unconscious after a youth hockey
practice and the victim later died.
Fred Engh, National Alliance for Youth Sports president and author of "Why
Johnny Hates Sports," called that violent episode a wake-up call.
"This is insanity," he said. "Everyone wants to know, why does this happen?"
Engh called for increased and mandated supervision.
"What we're doing is destroying children's innocence," he said. "And that
destroys the opportunity to learn and grow from the positive values that sports
provides."
The reason for Tuesday's outbreak of violence in Fayetteville is in dispute.
Sweeney said Wednesday his assistant coach, Mike Barfield, asked him to get the
referee's name so he could report some questionable calls to the "head ref."
Wood, overhearing the conversation, lunged at the assistant coach, Sweeney
said. When Sweeney put himself between the two, the knife grazed his neck. He
put an arm up to shield himself and was cut, Sweeney said.
"He just went berserk," Sweeney said of the referee.
Police found Wood's 3-inch pocketknife in the school playground, where they
said he tossed it.
Wood says he acted in self-defense, according to the Rev. Bob Hudak, an
Episcopal minister in Fayetteville who is also a youth basketball coach. Hudak
spoke to Wood at the jail Wednesday morning.
Sweeney and the assistant coach were yelling at the referee during the game, he
said. Afterward, according to Wood, Sweeney grabbed him around the neck, Hudak
said.
Sweeney countered that he didn't grab the referee's neck until after he was
cut.
Wood's attorney, Rufus Smith, said the charges against his client - minister,
substitute teacher, bus driver, Air Force veteran, father of five - are without
merit.
"This is out of context to anything that has happened to him before," Smith
said.
Any text written by other authors which may be quoted in part or in full
within this coverage of this issue is provided according to U. S. Code
Title 17 "Fair Use" dictates which may be reviewed at
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html If you're an author
of an article and do not wish to allow it to be mirrored or otherwise
provided on The Skeptic Tank web site, let us know and it will be
removed fairly promptly.
Return to The Skeptic Tank's main Index page.
Youth game ends with adult knifing
Referee faces charges in slashing of coach
By Sonja Lewis
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
The views and opinions stated within this web page are those of the
author or authors which wrote them and may not reflect the views and
opinions of the ISP or account user which hosts the web page. The
opinions may or may not be those of the Chairman of The Skeptic Tank.