Sunday, March 14, 2004

Steve Perez / The Detroit News Meads Mill Middle School seventh-grader Garret Drogosch suffered a broken leg at football practice last year when he took hits from eighth-graders. His family has filed a civil suit against the coaches who instructed the drill.

Despite clean record, coaches may pose threat

Physical risks loom during team practice, games, discipline

By Fred Girard / The Detroit News

Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

Cheryl Drogosch went to all of her son’s sports practices until he reached middle school last year.

“Then I thought I’d be leaving him with coaches I could trust,” she said.

If she had attended what turned out to be the last practice of her 12-year-old son’s football career last October, she said, she would have protested a tackling drill called eighth-grade hit day. The drill was brought to Northville’s Meads Mill Middle School by coaches and teachers Doug Walters, Nick Nugent and James Chabot.

Walters and Nugent told Garret, a seventh-grader who stood 4-foot-11 and weighed 85 pounds, to stand upright, hands at his side, while three older players tackled him one after another. Chabot was not at practice that day. On the third tackle, Garret suffered two broken bones in his right leg, shards protruding from his skin.

Parents should be involved and question coaching techniques, Cheryl Drogosch said. Experts interviewed by The Detroit News during a two-month investigation agreed, saying criminal background checks of coaches may come back clean, but cannot reveal character.

“I have three kids, and I wouldn’t let one of them play for a coach I didn’t know,” said Steve Nedwicki of Dearborn, whose son plays soccer. “I want someone who teaches them the sport, and good sportsmanship.”

Walters and Nugent are devastated, said their attorney, Suzanne Bartos of Detroit. “They’re constantly thinking about Garret being injured, and they’re horrified they’re being blamed.”

The Drogosch family has sued the school district and the coaches.

Like the Northville coaches, Tony Blankenship had a clean record and an excellent reputation when he coached football at Detroit Murray-Wright High three years ago.

But Blankenship occasionally enforced rules with paddling.

One player, Omi Judkins, was paddled so hard that his mother took him to an emergency room.

In January, a Wayne County Circuit Court jury awarded Judkins $7,000 in a civil suit.

“I care deeply for my kids, genuinely, from my heart,” said Blankenship, who is now coaching the Detroit Demolition women’s football team. “I would never hurt a kid.”