Ryan Mullarney on TV

Twelve-year-old Ryan Mullarney's face was all over the news on Tuesday.

He's the victim of an alleged assault by one of his football coaches, Michael Crawley.

The 85 pound Mullarney described his ordeal. He said that Crawley slammed him to the ground and called him a "mother f***er" and was "dropping the f-bomb."

Crawley's outburst is shocking. It's frightening that a coach, a role model for these middle school kids, would physically attack and verbally threaten one of his players.

620 WTMJ has the police report.

Names are redacted but there's no doubt that Ryan Mullarney is the victim of the allleged assault. He wasn't hiding his identity. He talked about the incident to reporters. His mother, Lynn Brellenthin, participated in multiple interviews, too.

If my son had been attacked by his coach, I wouldn't want him to speak to reporters and certainly not on camera. I wouldn't agree to go on camera either. I would want to maintain my privacy and protect my child as much as possible.

It's really amazing that Crawley could snap so completely and with such ferociousness.

Besides the physical abuse, the language Crawley used was incredibly abusive. How does a coach and father become so angry at a child that he yells that he's going to kill him?

The police report states:

Crawley stated that [redacted] has hit his son in a "cheap shot way" before. He believes [redacted] is a dirty player and thought it was an intentional hit.

That may be.

So what? It's irrelevant.

There are dirty players. Middle school kids can be brutal to others, physically and verbally.

It's possible that Mullarney did intentionally hit Crawley's son.

But that is no excuse for Crawley to attack Mullarney.

The police report says:

Ms. [redacted] was displeased that Crawley was not in custody and she expressed fear of him. She said that up until this incident she and Crawley were friends. She requested information regarding a restraining order....

If they were friends, it appears that Brellenthin didn't have problems with Crawley in the past. She apparently trusted him with her son.

Now she wants a restraining order.

If she needs that to be more at ease, I can understand how that might help. However, it does seem a little weird that she would agree to do all the interviews if she's so fearful of Crawley.

I want to be clear. Crawley was 100% in the wrong to attack one of his players. No matter what Mullarney did, Crawley responded terribly inappropriately. Coaches do not assault the players. Period.

I wonder why Crawley so totally lost it. Why did he snap like that?

Something set him off.

I do think it should be remembered that Mullarney may not be the angel the media are making him out to be.

Again, that's no excuse for Crawley's behavior.

I don't see why Mullarney and his mother would participate in the media blitz. What's the point? There's something sort of unseemly about that.

The police are investigating. It's not as if the mother and son are using the media to uncover the story or build support for their cause. Mullarney is already the sympathetic figure.

There's a fifteen minutes of fame aspect to this.