- November 27, 2024
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An incident at Calvary Christian School spikes a discussion about butt-slapping in high school sports.
BY BRIAN MCMILLAN | EXECUTIVE EDITOR
It’s on TV every night: A player is taken out of the game for a substitution and, on the way to the bench, the coach gives the player a pat on the butt.
But when is a pat on the butt OK, and when is it not?
One recent incident involving a Palm Coast referee and a high school player at Calvary Christian School in Ormond Beach resulted in a charge of battery.
Brian Morris, head coach for Calvary girl's basketball team, said the referee should never touch a player — boy or girl.
"All they need to touch is the basketball and point you to a position," Morris said. "There shouldn't be any contact whether it's a boy or girl. That's not normal." (Click here for that story.)
Over the years, Ken Seybold has seen a lot of pats on the butt at high school games. He is the assistant principal at Matanzas High School and was the athletics director there from 2005 to 2013. Before that, he coached basketball and soccer at Flagler Palm Coast High School.
He has no knowledge of the specific case at Calvary, but he said gender makes a difference in determining what is OK and what is not.
“If you’ re a male coaching girls, I would strongly recommend they don’t do that,” Seybold said. “But in a guy’s game, you’ll see that a lot — slapping a guy’s behind.”
There is a double standard for referees, as well, he said.
“If it’s a guy’s game — I’ve seen refs do this — there will be two guys getting into it under the boards, he’ll put his arm around the guy’s back, and say, ‘Hey, look, you need to clean this up. I don’t want to be in the position where I have to give you a cheap foul. Just play hard,’” Seybold said. “And there’s a smack in the butt. … If I saw that in a girls game, where the referee slaps the girl on the butt, my eyes are going to open up a little bit more than if it was a male official with a male athlete. Is that a double standard? Is that right? I don’t know.”
Seybold noted also that he saw a difficult situation at a football game one year. “There was an inappropriate comment to a water girl by an official,” he said, “and we had to turn it over to law enforcement.”
There are no specific guidelines or rules about what is appropriate or not, he said. “I never gave anything to our coaches in terms of that.”
Flagler Palm Coast High School Athletics Director Steve DeAugustino, who has been in his position since 2007, said his school has no policy regarding butt-slapping or the like, either, but he said common sense should be the guide.
“Would you walk down the street and do it? No,” he said. “Would you do it in the classroom? No."
“I think that a rule of thumb for people would be that if there’s any slight possibility of the athlete feeling threatened or uncomfortable over it … you have to think these things through. You’ve got men officiating women’s sports, and women officiating men’s sports. I would highly recommend that you don’t touch anybody in any circumstance, in anyway way, shape or form that’s going to make them uncomfortable.”
Both DeAugustino and Seybold said there are many coaching practices that change over time. Coaches used to refuse water breaks for players as a punishment. They used to send kids back on the field after a probable concussion.
Is butt-slapping just part of sports? Or could it be next on the way out?
“Should it be discontinued? Probably so,” DeAugustino said.
Ochocinco’s courtroom butt-slap lands loses plea deal
In June 2013, former NFL player Chad Ochocinco Johnson was denied a plea deal after he gave his attorney a slap on the butt in court.
A move that is usually welcomed on the football field was not treated lightly in the courtroom. After the butt-slapped occurred, the courtroom busted out in giggles causing the judge to reconsider Johnson’s plea deal for violating probation.
The touchy moment with his attorney landed him 30 days in jail.
See the video from ABC News here.
