HIGH SCHOOL: High School Failure

By Noah Davis UsFANS.com Managing Editor

Colorado schoolboy football coaches should consider asking for additional equipment.

Along with the whistles, caps, shirts, etc., that coaches overseeing teenagers in athletics use to run various programs, do they need to think about adding, well, body armor?

Of course, that's ridiculous, but so is what occured last Thursday at Denver's South High School's practice field for football. There's not one scintilla of possible explanation or justification for an incident as ugly, embarrassing and potentially dangerous as any on record in scholastic sports.

Many details have yet to surface, and the principals are adhering to counsel - they're not talking. (Aren't we all shocked.)

We do know, however, the brother of Harold Johnson, South's head coach, has been accused of felony menacing. Steve Johnson was at the afterschool practice, according to authorities, and allegedly brandished a gun against at least one of his brother's staff members.

That's correct - a man, an adult, age 47, is being accused by multiple witnesses for waving a gun around coaches at prep practice.

Inconceivable, isn't it? How could anyone even think about doing something like that?

It's not only a bizarre tale, but one involving ironic characters and circumstances.

Harold Johnson donated a kidney last year to save Steve Johnson's life. The coach also is a firefighter. Usually, the man saves lives and is not associated with threatening or ending them.

South's team is experiencing its best season in decades and was making some final preparations for Saturday's opponent, Thomas Jefferson. The Rebels were less than 48 hours from playing for their first Denver Prep Conference championship since 1973.

South, which now has won eight straight games, not only has the leading rusher in Colorado, Lendale White, but the team's quarterback is Allen Webb, a junior and the grandson of Mayor Wellington Webb, a longtime proponent of kids and athletics.

Apparently, this is part of a mess that had been brewing for two seasons among Johnson and his staff. Yes, it was known that multiple team coaches frequently experienced contempt for each other, with the disagreements including strategy, use of players, discipline and African-American male adults calling each other the N-word.

It wasn't colorful or interesting.

It was boorish and could even have turned deadly - in more ways than one. South's players were in a nearby locker room and a city game was being played at All-City Stadium, just several steps away.

If it's true that a gun - which has yet to be found - was drawn, what would have happened if a shot was fired and someone was wounded? Or killed? Would there have been additional gunfire? Would others have been harmed?

Don't miss the point - basically, it was about a bunch of men and not the players, an alarming trend manifested by baby-boomers over recent decades, a steady trail of 30-, 40- and 50-somethings who suddenly seem to think they are experts in all sports, male and female, from the pros to the pee-wees.

Even if they are - or think they are - that doesn't make them coaching material.

There was no chain of command, no respect, no common sense. No, it had to be about "me." High school athletics in took another hit and the rest of us are left to wonder - and worry.

Johnson, who is suspended for at least the rest of the season, is miffed that he found out about his penalty by watching television news. To the city officials' credit, they are holding him accountable. One other assistant was suspended, another asked to be put on leave.

I say the Rebels should clean house totally.

What certain coaches did was unforgiveable - their bickering got to the point that a man allegedly grabbed a gun and brought it to practice.

The Rebels won Saturday's game, but that can't possibly wipe the tension away.

A high school full of kids, particularly a football team of young men, has been unnecessarily scarred instead of being encouraged, mentored and supported by its alleged leaders. It's supposed to be about kids on the high school level, not the coaches.

You let them down, guys. Go away and don't come back.

Article courtesy of www.UsFANS.com