STORY UPDATE:
UPDATE: Arrests coming in football fight
By Robert Eckhart & Halle Stockton
Arrests will be announced at 1:15 today in the youth football brawl that was captured on video by a parent in the stands last weekend.
The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office yesterday indicated that as many as four people associated with the Sarasota Gators football team may be charged. Two referees were attacked in the incident. Assaulting a referee is a felony under state law, with a maximum punishment of four years in prison.
The video was featured on the "Today Show" this morning, a sheriff's spokeswoman said, and has garnered attention from other national media.
Today at 11 a.m., the referee injured in the fight, Jayme Ream, has scheduled a press conference with his attorney. Ream has not made any public statements since the incident last Saturday.
TODAY'S NEWSPAPER STORY
The Sheriff's Office was getting calls from as far away as Kansas on Thursday as people responded to a videotape that showed youth football coaches and players attack a referee and spark a brawl.
The Sarasota Gators started the fight, and have now been banned from their home field and suspended by their parent league, the Mid-Florida Football and Cheerleading Conference.
Friday, as many as four people affiliated with the Gators could be arrested on felony assault charges. All of them have cooperated with the investigation, sheriff's officials say.
It started with about a minute and a half left in the first half. The Gators, playing Saturday on their home field at Riverview High, were losing, 30-6, to the North Port Husky's.
The referee called a personal foul, and the coaches on the Gators sideline all reacted.
"Standing on my sideline, at first I couldn't understand why they were so upset," said the North Port Coach, Mike Cody. "The flag had been thrown on our team. Maybe they thought it was against them."
As the Gator coaches confronted the referee, he threw the penalty flag again, Cody said.
Then the Gators coach threw an open water bottle at the referee.
A few seconds later, the fight was on.
The eye in the sky
The video, shot by a North Port parent, does not show who threw the first punch.
Though the brawl appeared to involve as many as a dozen people, the only people reportedly injured were the referee, Jayme Ream, and a coach with the opposing North Port Husky's who tried to break it up.
"This was a bad incident," said Ream's wife, Michelle. "He was real shaken up. It's not anything we ever wanted to deal with."
Michelle Ream said her husband has been a referee for 14 years and has officiated sporting events at all levels throughout Southwest Florida. She would not comment further on the advice of their lawyer.
The Reams are scheduled to hold a news conference at their lawyer's office Friday.
The extent of Jayme Ream's injuries was not clear on Thursday. Deputies said Ream did not initially realize he was hurt in the scuffle.
The North Port coach fell as he tried to help the referee, Cody said, and was pounced on by a Gators coach.
"He was in the middle of the pile, you can see him getting kicked," said Cody.
The coach was sore after the incident, but Cody said he was not sure whether he was treated by a doctor.
Off on their own
Gators president Eddie Austin, 36, of Sarasota, said he would issue a statement to the media, but then did not return phone calls Thursday.
Austin attended Saturday's game, but did not appear to be among those involved in the brawl. The Sheriff's Office would not release information about the four suspects.
The Gators are a start-up team formed in 2009, one of a half-dozen different youth football organizations in Sarasota County.
Last year, they had trouble getting games, and only competed in three, said a coach familiar with the organization.
"It doesn't surprise me to see what happened," said Chris Toelle, a Sarasota resident who has coached for a dozen years. "There's just not a lot of rules for them to follow and they let a lot of people in who probably shouldn't be coaching."
Last season, Toelle coached with the Pop Warner Suncoast Buccaneers. His team practiced on a field at Booker Middle School, right next to the Gators practice field.
He said the Gators had their 9-, 10-, 11-, 12-, and 13-year-olds all practicing together — a risk to player safety.
"There's just not that many 9-year-olds that are mature enough to be out there with a 13-year-old," Toelle said.
The Buccaneers approached the Gators several times to suggest a merger because the Buccaneers needed more players.
"They always had a decent group of kids," Toelle said. "They were able to stick together but had no interest in being in any other Pop Warner organization or anything like that."
Beefing up security
Cody, of the Husky's, called Saturday's events "disgraceful" but also wanted to point out that some people from the Gators were trying to break it up, too.
He said that he received a letter from the Mid-Florida Conference that commended how North Port coaches, players and parents responded to the incident.
"I feel like our people did the best they could do in the situation they were put in," said Cody, who paid $1,200 on Thursday for uniformed police officers to be at the Husky's remaining four games.
Saturday was the Husky's second game in their inaugural season, and they do not really have the resources to hire security, Cody said, "but after what I seen last Saturday, how can we not afford that?"
Another concern, Cody said, is that now the Gator players from five different age groups have no place to play football.
Cody said he found out a few of them are from North Port, and after getting calls from their parents he is considering adding them to his team.
"If the kid wants to play — and this is my motto — he will play."
Several other area youth football teams, including the Suncoast Buccaneers, are also looking for players.
