On Friday, November 2, 2007, Coach Crawley will appear in Milwaukee Court for an intake hearing on two misdemeanor charges alleging he abused a child and acted disorderly.
However, Coach Crawley and several other witnesses say that never happened. This is just another case of the media sensationalizing a story for the ratings.
Reporters have been contacting Attorney John Birdsall, Crawley's criminal defense lawyer, asking questions and searching for more dirt on the story.
Crawley has been a coach for several years. Before being allowed to coach, the school conducted a complete background check on Crawley. And since becoming a coach, several parents say that he has positively impacted their children's lives.
When you remove the press wrapping from the story, it goes like this. Crawley was teaching his boys a new play. One of those players has repeatedly played dirty in the past, and on the day of this scrimmage, he targeted the coach's son as he had done in the past, and delivered a whopping impact with his shoulder. That impact was so strong that the responsible player wore a sling given to him by his mother after he had been checked out at the hospital to determine that there were no injuries and he did not need a cast.
Meanwhile, the coaches son, who was slammed to the ground by the blow and who lay screaming in pain while the responsible player looked over and laughed, was injured very badly. The responsible player was up to practice the following day and played in a final heated game two days later. However, the coach's son is still out with a very deep bruise to his thigh, and scheduled for an MRI.
So, who is the real responsible party here?
Is it the coach for being upset over his son being the target of a dirty player, getting seriously injured, and moving the assaulting player out of the way so that he could get to his and take him to the hospital?
Is it the dirty player who targeted the coach's son? Who laughed after he had knocked him to the ground, despite the fact that the boy he smacked to the ground with his shoulder blow lay screaming in pain? Who had previously played in this fashion?
Is it the coach who said that the dirty player would not play again?
Or the boy who lives to play football, despite his cheap shot methods?
Or is it the mother, who really wants to see the coach put in jail?
Perhaps there is much more to the real story than a single question about who body slammed whom. Perhaps the coach had talked to the dirty player's mother about the player's ethics on the field, and indicated to her that the cheap shots had to stop, or the boy would be removed from the game. And perhaps that mother told her son, which is what caused him to want to take the coach's son out. Vindictiveness seems to be playing a major role in this case. From the boy who wears his mother's sling to practice the next day - after hurting his own shoulder while taking a cheap shot on the coach's son and not being able to get a sling from the hospital - to the mother's repeated visits and calls to the police station to ask for the coach's arrest, things just don't add up the same way as the media has led you to believe when you know the whole story and the identity of the responsible player.
John A. Birdsall, Birdsall Law Offices, S.C.
135 W. Wells St., Ste 214, Milwaukee, WI 53203
414.831.5465 - www.birdsall-law.com
135 W. Wells St., Ste 214, Milwaukee, WI 53203
414.831.5465 - www.birdsall-law.com
