Ok. I have held off comment long enough. I was about as close as you could be to the action between phillips and whitney other than being one of them or the official. Here are my educated comments:
1. Both wrestlers displayed aggression which is 100% gold in my book. Aggressiveness is something I have been trying to coach all season long.
2. Frustration played a huge part in this incident.
3. When two wrestlers tie up aggressively, such as these two state placers did, things occur such as forehead rubbing and grinding, and also things happen that are unintentional such as head butting.
4. Unintentional head butting and head grinding, even though both guys are equallly guilty, lead to tempers flaring.
5. This entire incident, although escalating quickly, could have been prevented on initial fore head rubbing/grinding took place which i honestly believe both were guilty. All it would take is a whistle from the referee and a warning to either both wrestlers or the wrestler he thought was the one at fault... then the coaches could get involved and tell their respective wrestler to cool it.
6. Brent lost his cool when he took an unintentioal head butt to his face.... Whitney unintentionally got Phillips and Phillips lost his cool and had a momentary lapse of judgement. He made a mistake out of anger and to fault and 16 year old young adult who is still trying to learn how to be a man. AND to take his medal away for that was a crime.
7. If you haven't figured it out by now, I am one of brent's coaches. The one mentioned above that was quoted "stay by me". I didn't appeal the referee's decision for one reason... and that was because Brent retaliated and was out of line. I feel horrible for that whole situation. I do not coach bush league stuff, but I do emphasize aggressiveness because 90% of the wrestlers on my team need to be more aggressive. With that being said, I apologize to Whitney and his family for that incident and I know how sorry Brent Phillips is also. He feels horrible and I just wish that it never occurred. BUT there is nothing I can do to change what happened. I did appeal the call off the mat but there was nothing I could have done to change the call because of another incident that happened earlier on the 2A mats that set a precendent for the tournement.
Brent has a heart of gold. He made a mistake and I am not going to reprimand him for his actions. He learned his lesson, trust me. If you have negative comments about Brent or this incident, I would ask you to please keep them to yourself because he is seriously considering not wrestling next year. With that being said, if you have positive comments for this young man, let them be known. He is sorry and I pray that he wrestles next year and turns this whole situation into a positive because he only has one more year of wrestling left then he must go out in the world and become a man.
Thank you wrestling fans, friends, and family.
6.