Two Team Brawl Breaks Out At End Of Florida Regional

my upper-middle class HS almost had a brawl after being cut off in the 4x400. well, it wasn't a true brawl (no fighting), but people were jawing at each other and multiple people ran over to posture

Ironically, our distance captain who was small (probably like 5'7" and 110 pounds), but fast and well-respected was able to pull away a bigger sprinter (6' 150); i think it also was fine since we still won.

also wasn't a race thing as both were white.

And yet nobody has given a good reason why athletes who were not involved should be DQ'd. They weren't involved.

I repeat, they weren't involved.

This also shows that none of the athletes or parents have any respect for either coach. If any of those boys ran for me they wouldn't be competing for me next year as well.

Punishment fits the crime. Those that weren’t involved can take it out on their POS teammates and parents. It’s a bummer, but the governing bodies have to prevent this in the future somehow.

Innocent members of a team are justifiably punished by gross misconduct from their teammates all the time.

It’s a message to these schools - get your sh!t together or you can’t participate.

How does this prevent future knuckleheads from screwing over legitimate nonviolent athletes?

I'll wait.

No one will be able to give a good reason. There are some people who will twist themselves into absolute knots to explain why some crazy punishment is just, if the targets of the punishment are minors. This attitude is especially common in youth / high school sports but I think it's common enough in all areas of education and juvenile life. There's this weird belief that the adults are always right, that whatever they say must be automatically sensible, and specific to this kind of situation, that it makes sense to use group punishment because there's a lesson in it somehow or whatever for the ones who didn't do anything. As another poster said, if an adult group was punished the same way, the non-offending adults who were being punished anyway would fight back, call foul, maybe even lawyer up if necessary. But because it is kids, a lot of smug jackholes will shrug and say it all makes sense to them. What were the non-fighting kids supposed to do, hop in a time machine and convince their parents to move to a different district before the school year started so they'd have been on a different team?T

The message hits home more when all your friends and coaches are pissed at you for your behavior. When your garbage behavior affects more than just you.

*nonviolent teammates

They should be DQ’d for leaving the meet early. Wtf.

I played a year of football in high school. We went to play a hood school at a neutral site. Game was contentious the second half and finished with some jawing with the handshakes called off and coaches telling everyone off the field. However that was just the beginning. Our teams buses had parked together in a big gravel parking lot and the players from both teams got back to the buses at the same time. Huge brawl broke out, people just started randomly throwing hay-makers at whichever "opponent" was closest. That was as old school as it gets. For the coaches, that was the norm. But for the kids, just the beginning of the sissy era where fighting was becoming more obsolete. Fun times indeed.

I disagree. My two basic rules to follow when punishing students:

1) Punish the behavior, not the person. [Never make it personal]

2) Punish the individual, not the group. [Never punish the innocent]

just wanted to point out that miami northwestern, one of the teams DQd has to have been a favorite for the state title. they had a guy running 10.5, and their relays were running 40.7, 3:13, and 7:55. i wonder how this is going to shake things up at states.

DeSantis needs to stop T&F violence in Florida before I'll consider voting for him for president.

That’s great and all, but in a brawl you can’t always pinpoint who’s deserving of punishment (unless it’s on tv and you can slow-down/ stillframe). Of course it’s not fair to those uninvolved, but that’s why the punishment sends the right message.

“I got in a fight and kicked off the team” vs “I got in a fight, kicked off the team, and ruined my friends chances at a state title”

Which one do you think will prevent kids/parents already willing to get into fights from doing it in the future?

How do you punish the individual without punishing the person?

I'm sure the punishment isn't over. I'm sure schools will make coach changes and the athletic commission will likely suspend both team for next year as well.

Also look at how poorly some track meets are handled. Look at AAU nationals last August in NC for a recent example. They shut a meet down for the day because of parents fighting ( also thought they had an active shooter which was unfounded), but this is the ghetto crap that happens in youth sports. It's part of the reason my club doesn't do AAU meets anymore due to the ghetto clubs and no control of their athletes.

Republican run state.