A lawsuit against a parent who stands accused of physically attacking a coach is moving forward, bringing with it a potential precedent for the kind of punishment overactive and involved parents may see when they transgress beyond the lines of acceptable coaching criticism.
As reported by Hawaii News Now, then-Kaiser High School (Honolulu, Hi.) football coach Arnold Martinez was physically attacked by football parent Greg Tartamella, whose onslaught in September 2017 reportedly left a bruise on his arm.
The coach resigned days after the incident and the team’s football season was abruptly cancelled shortly thereafter. And while Tartamella’s lawyers have maintained that nothing physical transpired in the argument between parent and coach, video that was introduced on Wednesday, the opening day of the trial, purports to show the opposite.
Witnesses have also come forward to implicate Tartamella and, in one account, his wife as well.
“They were screaming in the coach’s face,” Kaiser football parent Jennifer Erb told HawaiiNewsNow. “The wife was pointing, and they were in very close proximity. Their body language was very aggressive, very hostile.”
Tartamella is facing charges of assault, harassment and terroristic threatening in connection with the incident. If convicted, his penalty could set a sort of precedent for what other parents may be facing if they lose control and become too aggressive with their players.
