MIDDLETOWN, Pa. — Footballs and fists were thrown at youth football game in Middletown this week, after the children's contest ended with an all-out-brawl which quickly went viral in a now-taken-down video.
It shows a fight that broke out at a Middletown Youth Club (MYC) game on September 17 during the youngest level of play.
"Next thing you know, fists were thrown and they were fighting," former MYC Raechelle Sawyers said.
Sawyers says this is not a one-off issue.
"The fight for me was definitely just a reflection of how the practices were going, how the scrimmages were going," she said. "There was profanity amongst the coaches, you know, arguing back and forth with each other."
After the MYC smurfs football team had trouble getting coaches, the league’s board answered by letting parents step up. This solved one problem, but created another.
"Weeks went by, the parents continued to argue with each other," Sawyers said. "The coaches continued to argue with each other."
Sawyers said the environment became combative.
"A specific situation where a coach that you see, one of the coaches that is seen fighting on the video, on this same field invited [a] parent to a fight here at practice," she said pointing to Susquehanna Street. "He actually, literally left the children here on the field and walked over to the street to fight a parent."
When Sawyers voiced concern to program leadership, she was banned by the MYC board citing her conduct.
She decided to pull her son from the team and is not the only parent to do so. Keisha Collins took all her kids out of MYC over concerns about the coaches.
"I don't even think half of them even had their clearances. You have one man out there with an ankle bracelet, walking around a field coaching the kids," Collins said. "There was swearing going on, profanity, and a lot of parents was getting into it with each other on the field."
We reached out to Middletown Youth Club President B.J. Noon, who declined our request for comment.
In a September 18 Facebook post, the organization said had taken measures to address the incident, indefinitely suspending all parties involved in the altercation. The post went on to add that the club will implement coaches and parents’ meetings, sportsmanship monitors for games, and a zero-tolerance policy.
However, these Middletown mothers say that’s not enough.
"The president was not doing his job making sure that parents and players are all safe," Sawyers said.
“I think the whole board needs to change," Collins said. "They need to get everybody off the board and Middletown just needs to do the whole board over."
The organization’s Facebook post included an apology for the "unfortunate occurrence."