Drunk Gymnast

DChino is all for positive reinforcement, but this is taking it a bit too far: NEWSDAY reports that a gymnastics coach in Port Jefferson Station, NY, has been fired and arrested after allegedly rewarding one of his students for nailing a difficult maneuver. Which sounds like a good idea, until you release that the “reward” was a bottle of rum, and the student was a 14-year-old girl.

While DChino understands that encouraging an athlete by giving them booze might work if the athlete in question is, say, Vin Baker or Eddie Griffin, it’s probably not such a great idea if we’re talking about a teenage girl. Which is why Steven Lamensdorf has been arrested and charged with unlawfully dealing with a child and endangering the welfare of a child, both misdemeanors.

As you can imagine, the gymnast in question is hardly an Amazon or a heavy drinker, so giving her a bottle of rum and letting her go to town is a pretty dangerous situation. The unnamed athlete had to be treated at a local hospital for alcohol poisoning after police said she drank “quite a bit of it” and that her “blood alcohol level was quite high.”

DChino has no idea why the coach thought this was a good idea, or how he thought this was going to end. The whole thing sounds like a plot line from “Eastbound & Down“that was rejected because not even Kenny Powers would be that stupid.

Although, to be fair, I probably would have worked my butt off if Lamensdorf was my coach in high school baseball. In fact, if there’s a free bottle of rum at the end of the rainbow, my softball team sure could use some coaching.

Thanks Sports by Brooks