The Plano East (Texas) Senior High School baseball team is under investigation after a DallasNews.com report, allegedly, found that the coaching staff used racist remarks and belittled injured players, with news that players held an annual fight club in the batting cages.
Following complaints to the school from parents of students regarding then head coach Travis Collins and assistant coach Reagan Allen, the school put both on administrative leave as more details were looked into.
Here’s what a player had to say about the reports of racial slurs:
“It was as if it was just a game to the coaches to see who could dish out the funniest nickname or phrase to ridicule the hurt player,” the student said.
As for the fight club, it’s believed that senior members organized the brawls during an annual conference when the coaches were absent, with the event being talked about on social media and, according to the Dallas Morning News report, left players with “bruised knuckles and black eyes.”
In reference to the fight club, here’s how another student described the activity:
“During the fights, usually organized by the seniors each year, all players are [pitted] against one another…with the little protection given by cheap boxing gloves,” one student said, according to theDallas Morning News. “There was no backing out of the fight for fear of shame and humiliation by the others.”
The coaches deny any wrongdoing, but the district already made the decision to disassociate Collins and Allen from the program, leaving several parents pissed off that the former coaches weren’t given a fair opportunity to explain themselves in light of the allegations, with one parents saying this:
“It’s sad that this investigation was cleverly disguised as being about player safety concerns from those not happy with their position in the … baseball program,” Anderson said. “I’m extremely disappointed in the lack of support from the district for these two longtime coaches and the one-sidedness of this investigation.”
There’s no word if the two coaches will challenge the decision, but, damn, if kids are being racially ridiculed and holding a freakin’ fight club every year, that’s not something that coaches shouldn’t either a) ignore b) be involved in or c) not know is going on.
So much for that whole first rule about fight club—which, in this case, is probably a good thing that it was broken.