Girls Rugby Game Turns Into Bloody Melee

[matcom]

<snip>

Rohnert Park police are seeking criminal charges against as many as 10 people following a bloody melee over the weekend at a girls rugby tournament during which two coaches and a referee were beaten so badly that one was knocked unconscious in fighting that spread from adults to the teenage players.

Police say they will forward the case to the Sonoma County district attorney today, recommending felony charges as serious as assault with a deadly weapon against at least one individual who repeatedly kicked a coach in the head.

The violence broke out Saturday during a daylong championship tournament involving the Alameda High School "Riptide" club rugby team and the Rohnert Park Girls Rugby Club team at Rancho Cotate High School in Rohnert Park.

"I've never seen anything like that in any of my years coaching," said Craig Stewart, 55, the coach of the Alameda team who was recovering at home on Sunday, a day after he was knocked unconscious and rushed by ambulance to Kaiser Medical Center in Santa Rosa with gashes to his face that he said required seven stitches.

Police and witnesses say that at about 2:15 p.m., just a few minutes into the game in which no one had yet scored, a spectator cheering for the Rohnert Park team confronted referee Paul Berman, 42, after a call that benefited the Alameda team. Berman, it turns out, is also an assistant coach for the Alameda team but had been asked to serve as a tournament referee.

"He threatened me with his finger, poking it toward me," said Berman. "I asked him again to move back, and he came back to the line. I had made a call he wasn't happy about, and he came back and punched me in the face. Then things simply spiraled out of control."

Police Sgt. Art Sweeney of the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety said the spectator punched Berman in the face three times. Berman said he suffered a split lip.

At that point, Stewart intervened to stop the attack, Sweeney said. The spectator allegedly turned and punched Stewart, and Stewart took him down to the ground.

As Stewart held the man down on the ground to wait for police to arrive, the coach of the Rohnert Park team -- a brother of the man who was pinned --

crossed the field with seven or eight other adult men and began assaulting Stewart, Sweeney said.

The Rohnert Park coach punched Stewart several times and kicked him in the head while he was down on the ground, knocking him unconscious while the other men also hit him, Sweeney said.

"I never saw them coming," Stewart said. "They took the boots to me. They just started kicking me in the head and the face."

Stewart said his assistant coach, William Travis, ran over to help because "it was so bad that he thought that they were going to kill me."

He said Travis knocked a few of the men off him and attempted to protect Stewart's head. The men then allegedly began kicking Travis. Travis, reached at home Sunday, said three of his ribs were cracked in the melee.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/16/MNGASCPR051.DTL

[MaineDem]

1. Well, of course it did. That's what rugby is all about.

I don't really mean that. And I see that the melee wasn't part of the game. Some people certainly do get wrapped up int heir sport, don't they.

I remember a bumper sticker "Give Blood; Play Rugby".

I love rugby, though. I think it's a fabuolus game!

[blue sky at night]

2. Does anyone wonder..........

why we as Americans resort to violence so easily? I responded to another thread about the same subject; my Opinion, when the very top most leaders of the country resort to violence almost as standard procedure, then why not we? I also think the amount of violence will do nothing but escalate, so heaven help those who's job it is to control it. Parents, Teachers, Coaches, Policemen, all need help. Of course when our coaches resort to violence then what do you do? I truly believe any organization reflects the values of the leadership, and look what is happening to our Country when our leader is a Criminal, a Coward, and a Cheater. Time to clean house!!!