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Lori Prichard reportingA Lone Peak High School football coach is caught on camera slamming a student's head against the wall while the student is in a headlock. As of now, that video is now circulating on the Internet site YouTube. But there's more to the story than the 25-second clip.
You watch the video and it looks pretty bad, and the audio is even worse, but it's clear what's going on. The coach did get suspended for his actions, but even the parent of the child you see in the headlock says her kid kind of had it coming.
In the video, Lone Peak High School football coach Monte Morgan has the kid backed up against a wall. Coach Morgan can be heard saying, "You stop it! There's no reason for this." The student's reply is unintelligible.
Then Morgan says, "I can do anything I want to. You attacked me."
The student replies, "I didn't attack you. You **** attacked me! You slammed my head."
And Coach Morgan shouts, "Shut up! Shut up!"
While the video may be shocking, Alpine School District Spokesperson Rhonda Bromley says there's more you don't see. "Hopefully as people are watching that video, they are understanding that there were things that took place before that as well as after that."
According to Bromley, the coach stepped in to break up a fight between two boys. "In doing so, one of the boys became belligerent with the coach, and he restrained him physically and tried to restrain him verbally as well," she says.
That restraint, not to mention the video, became the subject of a school district investigation. Bromley says, "The boys were suspended because of the fight they were in. The faculty member was also suspended."
Morgan was suspended two days without pay, and learned a hard lesson. "We would hope that on camera or off camera, people aren't going to act differently just because they're being filmed or they're not being filmed. Obviously, we would expect students, teachers, that all of us are going to act appropriately whether were being filmed or not," Bromley said.
We're told the fight happened on March 12, and the school district took immediate action.
We spoke with the parent of the student you see in the video; she did not want to go on camera, but she did say she thought the school district handled the situation appropriately. As for Coach Morgan, he's leaving to coach at another school, but not because of this incident.
E-mail: lprichard@ksl.com
