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School Sports
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Friday, May 16, 2008, 10:21 AM
Whose job is it to stop on-field fight? By Paul Durham | Sports Editor During a tense girls soccer playoff match, a physical altercation erupts between a player from each team. The fight, for want of a better term, occurs on the opposite side of the field from where both teams' benches are situated and closer to the spectator area. Neither the game officials nor players from each team -- the closest ones to the scuffle -- intervene. Eventually, the parent of one player involved in the encounter, ran onto the field and broke up the fight, knocking the other player to the ground, causing further uproar. Sounds like the script for a movie on the Lifetime channel but it happened right here in Wilson. The scene was Saturday's third-round playoff match at Hunt between the Lady Warriors and Gray's Creek High School. Michael Lindsay, who covered the game for The Wilson Daily Times and was an eyewitness, said the altercation lasted at least 20 seconds but maybe longer, until the parent, who happened to be Hunt football coach Randy Raper, broke it up. Wilson County Sheriff's deputies were called to the scene and they determined the contact made by Raper was inadvertent. Furthermore, according to North Carolina law, Raper, as a private citizen, has the right to intervene in an altercation in which one or both parties are subject to physical harm. So he was not charged with a criminal offense but was prevented from attending any more spring sports events at Hunt this year, said Que Tucker of the N.C. High School Athletic Association. Further sanctions against the coach might be in place next fall. I'm here to question whose job it was to break up the fight. I understand there are rules in place to govern coaches, players, spectators and referees and those rules all make sense at face value. The referees are not supposed to get involved in physical confrontations because of the threat of injury or liability. Players are not supposed to get involved when a teammate is involved and coaches are supposed to remain on the bench and keep their players there. Only if a referee grants permission to a coach may he or she come onto the field. Spectators are -- as I've heard said repeatedly regarding this situation -- under no circumstances to come onto the playing field. So, the question I have is: If everyone is following their respective guidelines, who is supposed to break up a fight in the unfortunate event one occurs? Some might say the job falls to a law enforcement officer or a school official. There wasn't a deputy on hand for Saturday's match because, frankly, they cost a lot of money and the school has to decide if it's worth the extra expense for a reasonably small crowd. Hunt Athletic Director Stevie Hinnant told me the estimated crowd size didn't warrant hiring extra security since several school officials would be on hand. But even though no law enforcement officer was present, there's hardly any guarantee one would have been near enough to rush onto the field and stop the fight within a minute or two. Again, if two kids are smacking the tar out of each other (and I'm not saying that's what happened Saturday night) and there is no immediate intervention by an authorized adult, whose job is it to stop it? I'm not pointing fingers at anyone for what happened Saturday, not even the young ladies involved in the fight because I'm sure they are not happy about their actions. I don't condone violence but, sometimes in the heat of battle, tempers flare out of control and cooler heads are supposed to prevail. But where were the cooler heads Saturday night? I think the refs did what they were told to do, the coaches did what they were told to do and the other players did what they were told to do. I also think Randy Raper did what he thought was the right thing to do given his 20-plus years of coaching and teaching experience, not to mention the parental instinct which surely helped guide him onto the field. Sometimes all the rules in the world can't take the place of common sense. I'm not saying that what Raper did was common sense but it's a lot better than watching two kids fight it out. What if one of them had been seriously injured in the altercation? Luckily, it's an issue that was avoided but this situation should provide cause to rethink the current guidelines regarding on-field altercations. paul@wilsontimes.com | 265-7808
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