Opposing coach punches 15-year-old girl at Wisconsin basketball game, video shows
A fight broke out at a basketball tournament in Germantown, Wisconsin, on Wednesday, and video from the scene appears to show a basketball coach hitting a 15-year-old player from the opposing team.
It happened while the Wisconsin Playground Elite, a Milwaukee-based team, and the Wisconsin Blizzard, an Apple-based team, were on the court .
“I’ve never seen a coach swing and punch a 15-year-old athlete, boy or girl, in all my life,” Daryl Bates, coach of Playground Elite, which includes the teen who was punched, told WISN. Bates told the TV station the player is Black — and accused the other coach, Craig Hawley, who is white, of hitting the teenager.
Bates said the fight broke out when the teen’s brother was ejected from the gym for heckling the officials.
Hawley said his players were defending themselves from the fans who were ejected, according to WISN. He said that one fan approached the bench and hit his son in the face, breaking his eye socket.
Bates said when he turned around, “punches were being thrown.”
“And the son of the head coach balled up his fist and swung at my 15-year-old athlete. And then the father tried going after the same 15-year-old athlete with his son,” Bates told WISN.
McClatchy News reached out to both Bates and Hawley for comment.
The mother of the girl, who was reportedly hit during the fight , had her tooth knocked out, according to WTMJ.
“As far as who hit who first, I don’t know… mom gets hit at some point and falls to the ground, the 15-year-old daughter runs to mom’s aid and gets met with a fist,” Bates told WTMJ.
Bates called out Hawley, who he says is seen on video punching the teenager, on his public Facebook page.
“Your ancestors must be proud of you,” Bates said in the post. “However, us, the Black Panthers and anyone else I decide to involve are not having it.”
He added in the post that he wanted to come for Hawley with “a pen, not a sword.”
Richard Kuranda, president of Wisconsin Blizzard, called it “a very unfortunate incident that shouldn’t have happened at a kids’ game,” according to WTMJ.
Police are not investigating because the victim has yet to come forward to press charges, WISN reported.
The basketball tournament has since been canceled, WTMJ reported.
This story was originally published July 24, 2020 at 2:17 PM.