Pop Warner investigates, suspends coaches

• Two coaches suspended in Massachusetts
• California 'bounty' investigation continues
• Pop Warner Super Bowl set for early December

Pop Warner football, which this year launched a stepped up push for youth player safety, now is caught up in an ongoing probe of an alleged bounty system in California and the suspensions of two opposing coaches after a Massachusetts game which left five members of the losing team with concussions.

"It's particularly frustrating and ironic given our recent emphasis on limiting contact in practice and trying to do our best to reduce the possibility of concussions," Pop Warner Executive Director Jon Butler said Wednesday in a phone interview.

After an Oct. 18 hearing, the Central Massachusetts Pop Warner league suspended two coaches for the rest of the season and put them on probation for 2013. Both teams' presidents were put on probation through 2013. The sanctions stemmed from a Sept. 15 game between Southbridge and Tantasqua with players ages 10-12. Five boys on the losing Tantasqua team suffered concussions. Tantasqua trailed 28-0 after the first quarter and lost 52-0 in a game played to the finish despite dwindling numbers of Tantasqua players.

Southbridge coach Scott Lazo told the New York Times he was not aware of the mounting injuries on the other side. "My team is not dirty. All the issues were on their side of the field. This is a football game, not a Hallmark moment," he said.

Lazo was suspended along with Tantasqua coach Erik Iller.

Butler said "clear rules violations" included breech of a rule that a team must have 16 available players to continue. "The losing team started with 17. They had three go out with injuries halfway through the first quarter, so the game should have stopped right then … and it didn't," said Butler. He said rules dictate that when you reach a 28-point differential, you go to a running clock, the leading team has to run and can't pass and there are no kickoffs. "They didn't do any of that,'' he said.

Butler said the officials lost control "pretty much from the start" but that the coaches "bear the greatest part" of the responsbility. "Clear rules violations by guys who had been through coaching training programs and been Pop Warner coaches for a while," said Butler.

Pop Warner's probe continues into whether coaches of a team in California offered bounties to players in 2011 for knocking foes out of games. The system, involving sums of $20-$50, was allegedly used by the Tustin Junior Pee Wee Red Cobras.

The coach and the president of the league have been suspended pending the inquiry.

Butler said the investigation by an outside regional director and an attorney is "winding up." He said interviews so far have yielded two distinctly different versions of whether the bounties existed. He said he is hopeful of a decision in about a week to 10 days.

Pop Warner has about 290,000 players. "On any given weekend in the fall, there are over 4,000 Pop Warner games," said Butler. "Unfortunately, stuff happens, and you occasionally get one that's totally out of control."

Pop Warner is entering it regional playoffs. The Pop Warner Super Bowl set for Dec. 1-8 in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex.