Three Coaches Suspended After Student Taped To Bench, 'Coach Just Snapped,' Mother Says

AP/7 News ^ | March 4, 2006

[ncountylee]

WIGGINS, Colo. -- Three coaches at Wiggins High School have reportedly been suspended after one of them allegedly taped a student to a weightlifting bench for several hours as punishment for disruptive behavior, according to a broadcast report.

A coach with 30-years experience used athletic tape to restrain the 13-year-old boy, covering his eyes, mouth and whole body, according to the boy's mother Stacy Robinson. Coaches refused to untie the boy even after he urinated on himself, she said.

"(I'm) very angry, there is no excuse for this," said Robinson.

A coach who allegedly tied the boy and two other coaches who witnessed the incident have been suspended with pay, according to Wiggins school Superintendent Sharol Little.

"For this to happen is hard for all of us, so I guess I want to give some certainty and assurance to our parents that we're doing all we can with the facts that we have to make sure that it doesn't happen again," she said.

At least 60 people witnesses the incident.

"You always here stuff on TV about things like this happening to kids and you think there has got to be another side to this story, this kid has to be horrible for something like that to happen, the coach just snapped, that wasn't the case here," Robinson said.

[CindyDawg]

:')

[GB]

I've been continuing to think about this case and did some digging around online to see if there were any followups. I didn't find any, but I did find the original KUSA-TV report from Denver, and watched it, and it was very enlightening.

First off, somebody wondered where the father was. The lead-in to the report on KUSA said, specifically, that the child's "parents," as in plural, were upset over this. Maybe the mother acted as the spokesman for the family. It's not out of the realm of possibility; if it were my son and this happened, it would take all my self control to keep from saying some things I'd have to ask forgiveness for in Church the following Sunday.

Secondly, the mother, who was interviewed, seemed like, at first glance, a prototypical middle-class mother, very well-spoken and articulate, did not give off any "vibes" of being a troublemaker-type, in fact she was quite calm, cool and collected, again probably a lot more in control of herself than a lot of folks here might be.

Thirdly, and this ought not to be relevant, and I hesitate to bring it up, but the reality is that I wondered about it and I daresay some other folks here probably wondered about it as well. This is a Caucasian family.

Fourthly ... and this is the thing that cinches it for me, that if these facts are confirmed this coach needs to lose his job and face criminal charges ... this was not any punishment for anything that had happened at that point in time, or to restrain this kid to keep him from hurting anybody. It was punishment for him supposedly being "disruptive" ... no one would elaborate ... at a wrestling meet that happened 24 FREAKING HOURS EARLIER!

IMHO, behavior by a child to the point where this kind of action would be considered needed to be done at that point and time, right then and there, not 24 hours down the road. And IMHO, an adult teacher who does not deal with something at that point in time, and instead would stew on it for a day until he got a chance to get his pound of flesh in retribution, not constructive punishment, has no business being in contact with kids.

Anyway, the report said that nothing more would come of it until later this week, the cops are in the process of interviewing witnesses, but that the case had been turned over to the local DA's office. And, again, if these facts are confirmed, I'd be stunned if the coach who actually did the taping doesn't get hammered really, really, really hard.