By Austin Bishop
Special to The Dispatch
SCOOBA — In a split second everything changed.
After just over three quarters of routine football that saw East Mississippi Community College build up a four-touchdown lead over visiting Itawamba on Saturday afternoon, a disagreement on the sidelines between an official and EMCC head football coach Buddy Stephens and an official, led to a 10-minute delay, the official leaving the field, and Stephens opting to head to the press box.
“That was just a disagreement between me and the referee, it’s over and we are going to move on,” Stephens said following his team’s 48-24 homecoming win over ICC. “I handled it wrong, he handled wrong and we will move on.”
According to witnesses on the sideline the official and Stephens moved toward each other after a verbal sparring match. A reporter on the scene indicated the official, who was on the sidelines and not part of the field crew, allegedly threw his clipboard at Stephens.
At this point things escalated rapidly, with assistants restraining Stephens and keeping him away from the official.
There were no ejections due to the incident. However, the spirited MACJC North Division battle did see eight personal foul calls and two player ejections.
“Composure starts with the head coach and when the head coach loses composure,” said Stephens, when asked about two other incidents in the game which EMCC athletes were ejected following dead ball personal fouls. “That starts with me and I will take full responsibility for that. I can’t throw rocks or stones, that’s my responsibility and I promise I will clean it up, starting with myself.”
Stephens, who is admittedly an intense competitor, said it shouldn’t have crossed the line, leading to the fourth-quarter confrontation, which delayed the game for at least 10 minutes while the referees on the field sorted things out.
“There is no room for that,” Stephens said of the incident. “You can be fiery and you can be intense but you have to have the ability to know when to say when and that’s my responsibility and that’s why I’m the head coach. If I can’t do that I don’t need to be the head coach.”
Stephen was not ejected.
“They didn’t eject me from the game,” he said. “They just asked that I leave because of what went on …. and the intensity of it. They had let that guy (the official) leave. It’s fine, I did that because we needed to move on. I told them (field officials) that I would leave, let’s just move on with the game. That really helped us move on with the game because they (the officials) were trying to figure out what to do and how to do it.”
Stephens coached the rest of the game from the press box and was on the field to address his team following the contest.
EMCC was leading 31-3 at the time of the incident. Both offenses came alive after the delay with ICC scoring three touchdowns and the Lions adding 17 points of their own to improve to 4-1 on the season.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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