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How many melees have you witnessed in Prep sports?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by sartrean, Oct 15, 2006.

  1. sartrean

    sartrean Member

    After watching ESPN's recounting of the Miami-FIU title fight, I was wondering if any of you all, sport writer types, have witnessed many prep sports melees.

    I've witnessed one melee at a soccer playoff game between Hometown High and Podunk High seven years ago. About 200 spectators were at the game.

    Anyway, these rec players on their respective high school teams all knew one another. Most of Hometown High's and Podunk High's teams were all on the same Elite teams in their rec organization, so it was a rivalry to say the least (and both these teams control high school soccer in my state).

    At one point of the game, a kid scored a goal for Hometown. He taunted two Podunk midfielders. They started pushing and shoving and then a Hometown kid came over from the sidelines and pushed a Podunk kid to the ground (the kid to first start pushing and shoving). Taunting kid then grabbed his teammate and they walked to the sidelines, and then the officials got involved in it, ejecting the four players (you can tell I don't know anything about soccer).

    The taunting kid's dad came out of the stands with the teammate's dad and began yelling at the officials, and so the officials rescind the red card or whatever, makes it a yellow card. Things were starting to degenerate at that point, so my facts get fuzzy.

    Out of the corner of my eye, I see two fans standing near the field throwing punches. Then I see a couple of players from Hometown's sidelines go over there, and then all 60 or so of Podunk's fans come running across the field toward the scuffle near the Hometown sideline. Before it was all said it done, every fan, man, woman and child had been involved, either as an innocent bystander, or had been beaten to oblivion (or doing the beating).

    Somebody grabbed me to get my camera and I had to fight 'em off. I had to run to my car and stash my camera and film (it was that long ago) and call my ME. I drove off to a hill nearby and then watched everything unfold from afar, praying and hoping that I had the camera settings correct and that I had some photos. It had already started to get dark and I'm not the best with a camera.

    Cops and paramedics were called and they showed up after the melee ended thanks to a dozen spectators from another event at the park saw what was going on and came over and restored order. While the fans (parents, mostly) were fighting, both teams had left the playing field and got on their busses, which speaks volumes for the team's coaches (and players).

    This was a big, big newsy for me, and the best soccer game I had ever seen. Luckily this was on a Saturday and my weekly had time to make this a front-pager, A1, with big, big photos of a Podunk alderman, a prominent Hometown attorney, and a local plastic surgeon throwing punches (with about 20 or so other parents fighting in the frame). At the time, we didn't know who these people were, but later found out.

    And this is the best part, this weekly didn't get many letters to the editor. We started getting a ton of them after this, mostly blaming us for ruining soccer season at Hometown High, and how we let the community down.

    Both teams' seasons were ended at that point, and were put on probation for the next season after each almost had their soccer programs ended (darn). No charges were ever brought against the principal brawlers involved, based on their well-to-do standing in society.

    Oh yeah, myself, a stringer photographer for a rival paper, my ME and the publisher got sued over this, and the case was tossed in summary judgement.

    So who else has witnessed any prep sports melees?
     
  2. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    I came out of a game to stumble into the aftermath of gunfire in a parking lot (no one hurt), but I like your story much better.
     
  3. sartrean

    sartrean Member

    Sorry, meant to start this in the journalism topics only forum. Forgot where I was.
     
  4. Beef03

    Beef03 Active Member

    Nothing too extreme, just a little tussel here and there in minor and junior hockey.

    However while playing bantam hockey our coach pulled us out of a game at the second period because the violence on and off the ice was beyond what was acceptable and it was a only a matter of time before someone wound up with a serious injury. I myself was jumped by their goalie in the hallway during that second intermission (why I have no idea, we had hardly been able to cross the red-line all game, were getting beat 10-0 at the time, and I played defence so I hadn't been anywhere near him) and the fucker gave me a healthy diet of his blocker after jumped on top of me. I wound up with a minor concussion.
     
  5. terrier

    terrier Well-Known Member

    I've seen several good hockey brawls, including at one playoff game where a golf ball was hummed across the rink and landed about five feet from where I was sitting. There was another one where about eight opposing fans jumped a player who been tossed out of the game and was heading back to the locker room with no police or security nearby.
     
  6. Herbert Anchovy

    Herbert Anchovy Active Member

    I walked past a few really good fights in the parking lots, even heard a stray gunshot or two, but nothing on the field.
     
  7. Cadet

    Cadet Guest

    I live in a state where every district has one team (you know, that one team) that just loves to brawl. Every sport, boys and girls, doesn't matter. Very rarely does it make the news.

    Witnessed a few bench-clearing fights, but the worst was seeing a soccer referee (who was a family friend) get jumped in the parking lot after the match. Broken jaw, needed a ton of stitches, vision still not right. That attack was the reason it's now a serious crime to specifically attack a sports official in the state.

    Second worst was seeing a boys basketball fight migrate from the floor up into the stands. I was about 8 and my dad had taken my brother and I to the game. There was little time to react when the fight came toward us, so my dad just told me to run to the top and grabbed my brother by the shirt collar, much like JT Snow did with Baker's kid at home plate, and dragged him up. Game was called and a few kids needed stitches.
     
  8. Sam Mills 51

    Sam Mills 51 Well-Known Member

    I'm lucky in that I've never staffed a prep event that involved a fight.

    But one I witnessed involved my high school and the arch-rival. The guys for the other school didn't bother to try and hold up its own QB, who was run out of bounds. He hit off the fence and tumbled to the ground. A few of the players went at it, and some of fans came out of the stands. I really thought that was going to be it, seeing that both schools didn't like one another and tensions usually ran kind of high.

    Thank goodness my school's AD - lucky for me, also my American History/Contemporary American Problems instructor my last couple of years - went out to try and break some scuffles up. Lucky for him, he was a pretty sizeable guy. Somehow, order was restored in a couple of minutes and life went on.

    A year earlier, I was caught in the middle between the same schools following the football game. My school won the game, and I had just dumped my music stuff in the hatch of my vehicle. Unfortunately, a few of the other school's model citizens saw that I was wearing some of my band stuff and decided to see if my head would make a melodic sound if you hit it hard enough. Lucky for me, some of my fellow bandmates - big, athletic guys ... no need to cue the band jokes - saw what was happening (though I was a junior, puberty hadn't found me, so calling me undersized was an understatement). So did the band director, a decent-sized man who could defend himself well, and a couple of our football players. They got me and another guy out of there. Lucky for me, by hitting nothing but my head, I got out with only a nasty headache.

    Yeah ... being in the crossfire of some idiot's ire is overrated.
     
  9. NoOneLikesUs

    NoOneLikesUs Active Member

    Many different kinds unfortunately.

    Strangely prep girls basketball always seems to produce some kind of action every year...and it's never the girls that end up brawling.

    I was covering a regional final football game last year and was out on the field trying to interview the coach of the losing team when skirmishes broke out. It was bizarre. I never felt threatened or in any danger, but to do this at such a deep level in the playoffs was extremely stupid.
     
  10. Smallpotatoes

    Smallpotatoes Well-Known Member

    No bench-clearing brawls but two memorable incidents:
    1). A one-sided girls soccer game. On a kickoff following a goal, the defender wouldn't give the kid kicking off enough room, so the kid decks the defender with a left hook.
    2). A high school hockey tournament game. Third period of a blowout. The captain of the losing team punches the ref who is restraining him from going after an opponent.
     
  11. Crimson Tide

    Crimson Tide Member

    There was a near-brawl at the Legion tournament this summer. Final day of the tournament, game for the second area seed to the state tournament.

    Team A (the local team) is up and three outs away from the seed. Team B (out-of-area team) is down, and has a big chip on its shoulder because it was the heavy favorite to win the area championship, but didn't.

    Third out is on a grounder, tag to second, end of game. Second baseman may or may not have mouthed off to the runner thrown out. Runner shoves the second baseman down and both benches clear.

    Not less than five seconds after the benches clear, Coach A reigns Team A in. They get on the buses within two minutes, gear just picked up and tossed in the bus undercarrage.

    Team B keeps fighting amongst themselves. They fight each other, they fight their parents, they start busting up dug out equipment (this was played at the local JUCO's field), then the cops showed up. Nobody got busted, but I wrote it up as a small sidebar anyway. So, not so much a brawl, but a team from out of town busting up equipment that doesn't belong to them or the Legion, but the JUCO.

    A smaller incident took place at a softball game. Out-of-town team (notice a pattern?) takes the field when the left fielder runs to the dugout crying and sobbing. We couldn't see because of the black mesh they used on the fenses these days, but her deadbeat dad came to town and was hurling insults at her and other players. The girl eventually took the field again when the asshole was kicked off the grounds.
     
  12. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    Was at a prep basketball game once when a kid on the visiting team was whistled for a stupid foul, then mouthed off to the ref and got a technical. Coach pulls the kid out and yells at him, but kid doesn't respond. Coach grabs the kid's shoulder to make him face him -- big mistake.
    Kid's parent comes running out of the stands from the other side of the court and confronts the coach. Parent pushes the coach down before order is restored.

    Was at another basketball game one time, one of our area schools with a great basketball team but bad reputation (it's in the ghetto, and its fans tend to get a little rowdy). There's probably a thousand people packed into this tiny gym for a playoff game. People are sitting on the baseline, sideline, wherever they can fit. Home team wins, and they celebrate by rushing the court. It was a wild scene, but no punches were thrown or anything like that.
    I did get to see someone get maced, though. That was cool.
     
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