Douchebaggery just seems to follow Bill Romanowski around. He was the NFL’s dirtiest player for years, and now, as the coach of a youth football team in California, he’s involved in a controversy concerning the dirty play of a 12-year-old, and his reaction to it. It may cost him his position as coach.

And the first thing that I’m wondering is … who the fuck let Bill Romanowski coach a youth football team? Who was coaching the other team, Rae Carruth? Todd Marinovich’s dad?

I’m all for second chances for everyone, but I’m sorry, when you build a career out of exhibiting a complete lack of class and sportsmanship on the football field, you do not get to be the guy entrusted to teach those things to kids.

But I digress… that isn’t the issue on the table. He is a head coach, we’ll just have to deal with it… and here’s what happened: Romanowski’s team was playing against another team that included a particularly rambunctious little bastard. Romo’s kids kept coming back to the sideline with scratches on their neck, cuts and bruises… the player even spit in JJ Stokes’ face. Romanowski confronted the other coach, and told him what his player was doing, and asked the coach to try to keep the game clean.

Then later, the same kid leg whipped another of Romo’s kids, and Romanowski, being an expert on recognizing dirty play, went out onto the field to check on his player. In the process, he also told the junior Romanowski out there, “Buddy, I warned your coach at halftime this kind of stuff doesn’t belong out here. You hurt my kid.”

This is the first time I’ve ever said this, and it will likely be the last, but … I don’t think Romanowski didn’t anything wrong here. I wouldn’t even describe it as inappropriate. In fact, I feel like it would’ve been irresponsible fo him not to say something to the kid.

If it scared the hell out of the boy, good. He was playing dirty, and it’s the responsibility of coaches and adults to put a stop to it. If the other coach won’t do it, then someone has to… even if that someone is Bill fucking Romanowski. The kid is 12 years old, not 5, and if he’s old enough to try to intentionally hurt other players, he’s old enough to have a steroid abuser scare the hell out of him.

Some parents and some administrators, though, had a problem with Romo’s running onto the field and confronting the player. The athletic director at the middle school says that Romanowski will be barred from the field when the two teams play again.

I’d argue that if anyone‘s going to be barred, it should be the coach who’s letting his player do this. He was aware of it, Romanowski told him politely about it once, and the kid kept doing it. That’s on the coach. If he can’t control his own player, either by lecturing him or benching him, then he is the irresponsible coach. And if you’re coaching in a league that includes Bill Romanowski, and you earn the title of the most irresponsible coach in the league, then you’ve got some serious problems.