SWANTON, Ohio — Swanton Local Schools has removed the middle school's head wrestling coach, Aaron Brown, after he allegedly physically assaulted a student at a wrestling invitational at Archbold Middle School Saturday.
District officials had initially placed coach Brown on paid leave after the incident. The district announced Monday morning Brown had been removed from his position after an investigation.
Witnesses told WTOL 11 that the incident happened after a Swanton wrestler lost a match against a Sylvania wrestler.
Multiple witnesses said the coach grabbed the student by the back of the neck, threw him into a wall, threw him into a set of metal doors and "used the child's body" to open the doors and then threw him into a hallway.
The wrestler's mother, Gayline Diller, filed a criminal complaint against Brown with the Archbold Police Department.
“My son is 14. You don’t put your hands on my kid or anyone’s kid," Diller told WTOL 11.
She said she confronted Brown after the incident and that her son no longer wants to wrestle.
“Coaches are supposed to be uplifting and encouraging and this man tore my son apart," Diller said.
Ashton Oliver, a parent of a Sylvania student, said that as the incident was unfolding, she ran onto the mat to stop a wrestling match and draw everyone's attention to the assault. She then alerted the Sylvania coach, who, along with other coaches, ran to the student's aid and physically restrained the Swanton coach.
Brown was then removed from the tournament.
"All day I had noticed him shouting and getting in faces of other wrestlers and being really harsh," Oliver said.
The superintendent of Swanton Local Schools, Chris Lake, said Brown has been coaching wrestling and football at the middle school for about five or six years. He was the assistant wrestling coach before he was named head coach last year.
Diller said terminating Brown is not enough. "I will not stop until this man is in jail," she said.
Lake said the district has previously received two complaints about Brown.
Last year, a formal complaint of Brown cussing at students was filed, which was handled by the district's athletic director, Lake said.
The district didn't have any more issues with Brown after this complaint, Lake said.
But last week, a parent formally complained about a comment Brown made to their son after he missed practice.
Oliver said wrestlers were visibly shaking and in tears when leaving the match after a loss.
"I've been around wrestling my whole life," Oliver said. "I'd never seen this many wrestlers come off the mat in tears. And it wasn't like it was a high-stakes tournament... it was just a regular weekend tournament."