Police arrested a youth baseball coach, who is also a deputy with the Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Office, along with an umpire, after a brawl at a 14u tournament in Mississippi on Sunday. The fight took place after a game during a Grand Slam baseball tournament at Cornerstone Park.
Brandon Lovelady, public information officer for the Starkville Police Department, reported that they had charged Lt. Darrell Holley, a coach for Starkville’s 14U Sports Performance Center Select team, and Jeff Akins, an umpire for the tournament, with misdemeanor fighting not in self-defense.
Video of the brawl filmed on the app GameChanger shows Holley and Akins begin to shove one another as the two teams walked in the handshake line following the game. Akins then punches Holley in the head, and the brawl begins.
The coach’s son also started throwing haymakers at the umpire
Deputy Holley’s son, a member of the 14U Sports Performance Center Select baseball team, then punches the umpire Akins twice in the back of the head. Holley then punched Akins in the head, who then fell to the ground. Holley continued to punch Akins. Akins then got back to his feet, and the two men fell to the ground together, continuing to fight.
While the two men brawled on the turf, Holley’s son then began hitting Akins repeatedly. At that point, bystanders and officials jumped in to break up the melee.
“Grand Slam Mississippi is sickened and devastated by these types of events, and there is no place for this whatsoever in youth sports or adult sports,” Grand Slam Tournament Director Mike Narmour told The Dispatch on Sunday. “… There’s blame for the umpire, there’s big time blame for the coach and the (involved) kids of that team. There’s no right for that and there’s no place for that in front of those kids.”
Narmour added that while he didn’t know what led to the brawl other than “stupidity all the way around,” he will ban everyone involved from all future Grand Slam tournaments.