(WSVN) - Their young son played in a tackle football league. After an argument between parents, some kids wanted to leave the team and play elsewhere, but they were told, “Play for us or you can’t play at all.” That’s when they asked Help Me Howard with Patrick Fraser to tackle the problem.
You’ve heard a family that prays together stays together. Now add, a family that plays together stays together.
Dwight Destine: “Me and my family come up with creative ideas and show them that, you know, it’s fun to just – to have a family.”
Dwight and his family have created a YouTube channel called “The MouseTrap,” talking about life lessons, how to deal with conflict and, of course, have fun.
Dwight Destine: “So you have kids, like, you just got to know how to enjoy them, so we just show it through the channel.”
Until this summer, Dwight was also having fun as an assistant coach on his 11-year-old son’s Cooper City football team.
Dwight Destine: “I’m an offensive coordinator.”
Then, Dwight noticed a kid being bullied in a group chat room. He talked to the head coach about it and was told to teach the kids a lesson by doing some extra exercise after practice.
Dwight Destine: “They all agreed to that. Like, ‘Oh, yes, I’m for it. No bullying; we’re against it.'”
But when Dwight started making the kids do exercise, a couple of parents didn’t like it. One mother got in his face.
Cassandra Mayea: “And I got in between the both of them so that I could separate them to, you know, create some space.”
That woman claimed Cassandra hit her.
Patrick Fraser: “Did you hit her?”
Cassandra Mayea: “No.”
Dwight was then suspended for a week.
Patrick Fraser: “The head coach agreed that you needed to discipline the kids?”
Dwight Destine: “Correct.”
Patrick Fraser: “And then he suspended you because of what happened when you disciplined the kids.”
Dwight Destine: “Correct.”
Cassandra said no one ever asked her for her side of the story, but she was banned from coming to the games and practices.
Cassandra Mayea: “I was disappointed because I was getting in trouble for something that I didn’t do.”
As a result, four of the players, including Dwight Jr., didn’t want to play for the team, but they were told, if you didn’t play for Cooper City, you couldn’t play for another league team, either.
Dwight Destine: “For him to have to sit out a whole entire year, it would crush him.”
The only way Dwight and the other kids could play for another team in the league is if they were cut from the Cooper City Cougars, but the coach wouldn’t cut them.
Dwight Destine: “They just need to release the kids, so they can basically go play wherever they want to play.”
Patrick Fraser: “What would you say to them?”
Dwight Jr.: “Just cut us.”
Patrick Fraser: “Let you go?”
Dwight Jr.: “Yep.”
The adults got into a minor argument, and the young kids are paying the price.
Cassandra Mayea: “I’ll take all the punishment. I don’t even care, but I feel like it’s really unfair that they’re punishing the kids.”
Well, Howard, can a league block a kid from quitting one team and going to another?
Howard Finkelstein, 7News legal expert: “When a parent signs a child up for anything, they are bound by those rules, which says they can’t just leave and go to another team. However, the same contract requires the team to act fairly, and not allowing kids to play when they did nothing wrong is not fair. Therefore, in my opinion, the team and league breached the contract, and legally, they can go to another team.”
This one got solved quickly.
Thirty minutes after I sent emails, the coach called me, telling me he and the league commissioner made a decision on the suspensions, adding blocking kids from transferring is to stop other teams from trying to recruit your players.
Then he said, his team now had 35 active players, and he was cutting Dwight Jr. and the three other players from the team.
Dwight’s face tells you how he feels.
Cassandra Mayea: “He is happy. He’s playing with a lot of his friends from elementary school.”
Dwight Jr. is now playing for Hallandale, and maybe the family can turn this into a MouseTrap episode on what a call to Help Me Howard can do for you.
Cassandra Mayea: “I was glad. Patrick was really nice. The whole team was nice, and everybody helped me out a lot.”
Glad Dwight and his friends are playing football again. Now, while Howard thinks the team violated the contract, if this happens to your child, you might have to go to court to get what you want. Fortunately, in this case, it all worked out.
Blocked from resolving a problem? Wanna pass on it? Let us tackle it and see if we can score some points for you.
With this Help Me Howard, I’m Patrick Fraser 7News.
The MouseTrap Youtube channel:
Youtube.com/c/TheMouseTrapFamily
CONTACT HELP ME HOWARD:
Email: helpmehoward@wsvn.com
Reporter: Patrick Fraser at pfraser@wsvn.com
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