Coachin' 'em up. Not.

 I once saw a high school basketball coach puts his hand on a girl and shove her down on the bench.

It was in the girls state finals one year and the coach's team was losing, so he grabbed this young lady by the arm and plopped her on the bench, and then he screamed in her face. He screamed a lot that day, I seem to recall. I guess that's what you do when you can't coach.

What I remember most about that, besides thinking "Who is this maniac?", is how the fans of one of the schools that wasn't even playing in the game (They were fans from Huntington North, the school I was covering) booed This Maniac lustily and shouted at him to get his hands off the girl. And I remember the maniac's scorekeeper turning around and scowling at them, shaking his head and saying something to the effect that they "don't get it."

Wrong, Mr. Scorekeeper. You're the one who didn't get it.

The Huntington North fans got it completely, which gave me a fleeting hope that there were at least a few people out there in Sportsball World who still had some perspective. In truth, I ran into a lot of people like that in 38 years as a sportswriter. Many of them were coaches who, surprise, surprise, were some of the most successful in Indiana.

Which brings me to this youth football "coach" you've all been reading about by these past few days.

By now you've no doubt watched the video from the American Youth Football National Championships in Kissimmee, Fla., and were properly appalled. It's one thing, after all, for a grown man to punch a 9-year-old child in the head. It's an even worse thing when he does it again and knocks him down, then yells at him as he stands over him.

If I'd have been that child's father, I'd have been hunting down this "coach" in the parking lot postgame. Just as I'd have been hunting down the aforementioned basketball "coach" for putting his hands on my daughter.

Thankfully, other people with perspective (and cooler heads) took care of it. They booted "Coach" out of the Georgia league he was in, and the Osceola County (Fla.) Sheriff's Office filed child abuse charges against him. He also lost his job back in Georgia.

His job?

He was a counselor in the Chatham County Sheriff Office's detention center.

You can't make this stuff up. You really can't.