District 10 just made a massive statement about how it will not tolerate abuse of an official when it suspended Sharpsville assistant football coach Steve Byerly until 2026 and publicly censured Sharpsville School District for its lack of an “adequate response” after Byerly was accused of throwing and hitting an official with a penalty flag during a playoff game Nov. 11.
Good for District 10. Any type of abuse towards an official should not be tolerated. Ever. Let’s make that clear. There is no debate here.
But the swiftness and severity of the punishment are in stark contrast to how District 10 has publically handled a pair of incidents against Farrell and its student-athletes that the Farrell School District rightfully deemed racist which occurred nearly two months ago.
In fact, Byerly’s punishment took less than three weeks to be handed out and happened even before District 10 had its next regularly scheduled meeting.
Why is that? Why was it deemed so important to take swift, decisive action against Byerly and Sharpsville while the pair of incidents involving Farrell, incidents so severe that Farrell has asked to be allowed to leave District 10, seemingly have lingered or been forgotten about?
What is wrong with this picture?
Why has racism seemingly been allowed to stand? Why has it been treated as a much lesser offense than abuse of an official?
Shouldn’t they both be looked upon the same? Shouldn’t they both be looked upon as something that just cannot be tolerated as we head closer and closer to the middle part of the 21st century?
And to be clear, we aren’t arguing about the punishment handed out to Byerly. That punishment is deserved. And it should have been swift like it was. A coach can never be allowed to abuse an official like that.
We just want to know why the incidents involving Farrell haven’t been met with the same public vigor.
Sure, the D10 committee talked about those incidents at its October meeting.
The committee didn’t like some of the answers it heard from Jamestown, one of the schools involved, but instead of publicly censuring the school or punishing it in any way at the time, it basically told it to go back and relook at the incident and its response.
No public action has been taken that we are aware of.
And that makes us wonder why racism is being treated as something that should be allowed to have a process that plays out instead of being handled with the same quick, decisive action as the abuse of an official.
It makes us wonder why action could be taken so swiftly with such a lengthy and public punishment for the incident involving Bylerly and Sharpsville yet what happened to Farrell has seemingly all but been forgotten.
At best, it is a bad look.
At worst? Man, we don’t want to go there.
We realize there is a shortage of officials. And obviously, the abuse an official is wrong. Let’s keep that clear.
But so is what happened to Farrell and its student-athletes, and it should have been met with the same swift, severe punishment as Byerly and Sharpsville were met with.
