Based on a report from AOL FanHouse this afternoon, yet another Div. 1-A head coach could find himself in hot water for laying his hands on a player.
According to writer Brett McMurphy, and citing five witnesses who did not want their names used for fear of retribution, South Florida’s Jim Leavitt grabbed special teams player Joel Miller by the throat during halftime of a Nov. 21 game against Louisville and twice struck the player in the face with his hand.
Miller’s father and his high school coach confirmed the incident to the website.
“You do something like that [on the street], you put them in jail,” Paul Miller, Joel’s father and a former Tampa police officer, told FanHouse. “Somewhere [Leavitt] crossed the line.”
Miller allegedly enraged Leavitt for a mistake he made in the first half of the game against the Cardinals. When reached by phone by the website, Leavitt refused to discuss the incident.
“I’ll visit with you about recruiting,” Leavitt said. “All the stuff we do in there [the locker room] ... I’ll visit with you about recruiting.
“Things that happen or don’t happen usually are kept within the team -- whether they happen or don’t happen. If you want to talk about recruiting, I’ll talk about recruiting.”
Two days after the incident, Miller -- who refused to discuss the situation with FanHouse -- told his father and others that he went to the coach to discuss the incident. Leavitt allegedly warned his player that “before you say anything, just know I am the most powerful man in this building.”
Ten days after that alleged conversation, Leavitt called Miller to apologize for the incident. Ironically enough, the apology came a day after Mark Mangino resigned his head coaching job at Kansas. Mangino had been under an internal investigation for allegedly pushing/poking one of his players in the chest during a walk-through the day before a November game.
For Leavitt’s sake, he’d better hope that, unlike Mangino, he has a good relationship with his athletic director. Otherwise, this situation could escalate very rapidly.