I Don't Really Know What To Think

Back in the summer, a horrible thing occurred in the 'Ville; actually, it happened in my 'hood. Just about a mile up the road from The Compound, a teenage boy on the PRP High School football team collapsed during football practice. The allegations say that he was denied water during the practice, which was on a typically hot and humid Ohio Valley summer day. The boy died a few days later. Now, criminal charges have been filed by the Commonwealth, and civil charges have been filed by the boy's family. I really don't know what to say about this.

First of all, I have a slight connection to the coach - my mother has known his in-laws for about forty years. Personally I've never met him, but I know who he is. That having been said, I just don't know what to think. But I've had some comments from faithful readers, asking for my opinion on this - mainly because they know it happened in my 'hood. So I feel compelled to give my opinion.

Second, my opinion is based on the fact that an autopsy was not performed on the boy, at the request of his family. So truthfully, we have no way of knowing if heat exhaustion was in deed the cause of death, or at least a contributing factor. Also, since there was no autpopsy performed there is no way of proving that the boy was taking a much-talked-about steroid, either. So from my point of view, since there is no concrete evidence, I think there shouldn't be any criminal charges from the Commonwealth. But that's just Puddin's point of view. I'm sure the Commonwealth's Attorney has a much different view.

If the coach is in deed to blame because the boy had a heatstroke because he was denied water, then I'll be the first to say make the coach rot in jail for the rest of his life. But without an autopsy to prove what the boy died from, it's inane to have a lawsuit again the man. The same would be if the boy was on some type of 'roids -- if they'd done an autopsy and we found that could have been a contributing factor, then I say let's go after who gave him the 'roids. But without an autopsy we'll never know that, either.

We've been talking about this for weeks, and a friend emailed me her opinion on this, and I felt compelled to share it with you. It gives another viewpoint to this case. She has a child that has participated in high school sports, so she knows what she's talking about. Here's her take on this:

"After reading so much about the Max Gilpin drama at PRP high school, I decided that I had to throw my two cents out there (after all, everyone else has). First, I would like to say as a parent, that losing a child must be utterly devastating. I can imagine that it might make them feel better to blame someone – anyone who could be held responsible in any way. However, I think that the lawsuit against the coach is not the right thing to do in this tragedy. I will say that I was not there and I don’t know the coach personally. I have heard nice things from people who do know him.

From what I have read, there was no autopsy done on Max. Why not? Wouldn’t it be in everyone’s best interest to rule out any other possible cause of death besides heat stroke? Perhaps there was some genetic abnormality that went undiagnosed, or perhaps an overdose of some supplement that he was rumored to have been using. The problem is, now we will never know if there was any other factor that aided his death. So…to charge the coach with his death when all other causes of death have not been ruled out is in my opinion, a witch hunt gone awry. The authorities do not have half of the evidence.

As a parent of a child who has spent many years in sports, I know the methods that coaches must use to get the kids to listen – especially teenagers. I can go off on a tangent about the number of undisciplined teenagers I see, but that is another story. All I know is that I would eat my left hand before trying to get a large group of teenagers to perform the way they are supposed to. Using water breaks as a method of getting the kids to do what they are supposed to is common because it is often the only thing that works. So this was hardly an unreasonable tool used by the coaches, IF that is what even happened.

So let’s roll ahead a bit if this man is wrongly convicted. Who will coach high school football? No one in that has anything to lose. Will schools even allow football if they have to worry about potential lawsuits? Not likely. Think that won’t snowball to the colleges? Where will they get players with the skills to be on their teams? Answer: they won’t. Not to mention that college coaches would be afraid of lawsuits too. So where does the NFL find their players? Ah, bingo - say goodbye to the Super Bowl. I know this may seem like an exaggeration, but that is where we are heading with lawsuits like this.

I hope and pray that this lawsuit will be dropped soon. Not because I really worry about losing the Super Bowl, but because I think it has no merit. What really scares me are people’s comments to the articles I read in the courier-journal. While I believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion, it seems as though some people are ready to chase this coach with a pitchfork and ignore the lack of evidence. If those are the people that are put on any jury, you can kiss more than the NFL goodbye."