Softball Coach Fired After Attacking Grandmother

Andy Berg Headshot

A softball coach in Texas has been fired for body-slamming a woman who was there to watch her 11-year-old granddaughter.

Donna Edwards, 60, was sitting in the stands watching her granddaughter's game when she heard someone yelling obscenities on another field. She went to investigate and began filming a teenager who was yelling profanities from the stands and disrupting the game.

That's when things got ugly, as Cy-Fair Texas Sting coach James Schmidt entered the stands and allegedly lunged at Edwards. The boy using profanity that Edwards was filming was Schmidt's son.

"He body-slammed me. He just charged at me like a football player and he was going for my phone," she told the Houston Chronicle.  

The video, which Edwards posted to Facebook, shows a teenager giving Edwards the middle finger, and then Schmidt comes through a gate in the fence, saying, "Do not!"

According to Houston news station KHOU, Edwards' adult son pulled Schmidt off his mother and Schmidt then proceeded to hit him.

"He wanted to fight. He didn't care who he was going to fight. Whether it was a 40-year-old man or a 60-year-old woman, it didn’t matter," she told the outlet.

Schmidt left the field before officers arrived and issued a warrant for his arrest. Schmidt turned himself in Wednesday morning.

"Cy-Fair Texas Sting strives to promote honesty, integrity, trustworthiness and accountability in coaches, players and parents," wrote coach Pat Bergin on the Cy-Fair Texas Sting website. "We require the highest levels of good sportsmanship at all times. Therefore, as of this afternoon, February 17, 2019, the coach involved in the incident is no longer associated with Cy-Fair Texas Sting."

Edwards, who is bruised and suffering from neck and back pain, said she plans to file charges against Schmidt.

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