Notre Dame head football coach Marcus Freeman has been named in a police report and accused of battery stemming from an off-field incident at a high school wrestling meet, according to a report by the South Bend Tribune.
The Mishawaka Police Department investigated an incident that occurred Jan. 3 at the Al Smith Wrestling Invitational at Mishawaka High School. Freeman was attending the meet to support his son, Vinny, a senior wrestler at Penn High School.
According to the police report, assistant wrestling coach Chris Fleeger of New Prairie High School alleged that a verbal exchange with Freeman and others escalated after Vinny’s match. The report says physical contact occurred between Fleeger and Freeman in a hallway as Freeman was walking through a doorway, though authorities have not publicly described the extent of that contact. Fleeger subsequently filed a police report accusing Freeman of battery.
Once the situation moved into a hallway, the report notes, Freeman’s wife, Joanna, and Fleeger were also involved in a heated exchange before local law enforcement and school officials separated the groups. The Freeman family then departed the school without further incident, according to the accounts.
The police investigation has been completed and the report was forwarded to the local prosecutor’s office, which will decide whether to file charges. It remains unclear whether prosecutors will pursue an indictment, and no charges have been announced as of this writing.
In response to the allegation, Notre Dame Athletics issued a statement strongly denying that Freeman engaged in any physical altercation. The statement asserts that Freeman and his wife simply intervened to remove their son from a tense situation after he was allegedly verbally accosted by the 5’5″ Fleeger, who by all accounts was the instigator in the situation. The school believes the available video evidence will fully exonerate Coach Freeman.
Freeman really needs to be careful after what happened to Sherrone Moore. There are people in the world who will pray for his downfall. In this country, successful black men are always targets.
