VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – Two baseball coaches at Kellam High School in Virginia Beach were suspended after an investigation into player discipline. The head coach, St Clair Jones, and an assistant coach, Ryan Kurpiel, will be allowed to rejoin the team March 31, 2017, WTKR reported.
“I was absolutely dumbfounded, imagine if an English teacher had done this,” the father of a Kellam baseball player to accused the coaches of abuse said. “These men have mentally, physically, and emotionally abused young men for a long time and they got away with it.”
The father agreed to an interview on the condition of anonymity.
“It’s a toxic environment how they treat these young men,” he said.
The father told WTKR the coaches cursed at his son about not shaving and told the student to get into a push-up position and crawl for more than an hour.
When he came home, his hands were bright red and swollen.
“My son could not raise his arm more than about 20 degrees,” the father said. “He went to school the next day, he couldn’t hold a pencil.”
Many players quit the team as a result of the coaches’ actions, the father claimed.
School officials have named Mike Lloyd an interim coach.
