GOP Candidate’s Brawl With Son’s Coach Revealed

Congressional candidate John Hylton in December pummeled a football coach whom he accused of roughing up his son at a practice the day before, according to police reports and witnesses.

With his son facing a one-week suspension as a result of the incident, Hylton voluntarily withdrew the 10-year-old from the last game of the season, a league official said.

Hylton, one of several Republican candidates for the 40th Congressional District seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach), said that his son, Johnny Jr., was “brutally assaulted” and that the next day he had simply defended himself against the assistant coach, William Wilson, 41, of Tustin.

“I wanted to have a discussion with Mr. Wilson, man to man,” said Hylton, 42, an airline pilot who lives in Newport Beach. “But Mr. Wilson got physical, and I had to defend myself.”

Wilson filed an assault and battery complaint against Hylton with Orange police. But officials declined to press charges after reviewing the case, citing conflicting accounts of the incident.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Delbert L. Wright, who reviewed the case, did not return telephone calls from The Times.

The fracas between Wilson and Hylton began with football blocking practice Dec. 9 at Shaffer Park in Orange for the Junior Pee-Wee All-Conference Team, an all-star team of players from 23 areas in Orange and Los Angeles counties.

Johnny Hylton and another boy were hitting a blocking pad held by Wilson, witnesses said.

The Hylton boy “complained that Wilson hit him too hard” with the blocking pad, said Matt Flynn, a father who said he was standing just to the side with his 11-year-old son. “I could see every hit going on, and it was nothing out of line.”

John Walz, the father of another player and president of the Newport Beach Pee-Wee chapter, disagreed, saying that Wilson had been unnecessarily rough.

“I turned and saw Wilson knock the kid to the ground and then put his finger in his chest and say something I couldn’t hear,” he said. “If the guy had been a coach in Newport and that happened, he would have been fired.”

When he arrived to pick up his crying son from practice that night, Hylton said he tried to find Wilson, but the coach had already gone home. He said his son suffered a mild concussion and dizzy spells from the hit and had to be taken to a hospital.

Behind a Backstop

The next evening, Hylton drove his son to practice and waited with a man he described as a family friend, Robin Dills, at the park for Wilson to arrive.

At this point, accounts given to police differ.

Hylton said the confrontation developed this way: He told Wilson that he wanted to talk. Wilson led him behind a backstop, where he held up a football jersey. When Hylton said, “I think you owe my son an apology,” Wilson threw the jersey down and said, “Oh, you want some too?” and lunged at him. The two men wrestled to the ground before others broke them apart.

In his statement to police, Dills also said Wilson started the fight.

But in an interview Thursday, Wilson called Hylton’s accusations “ridiculous.”

Wilson told police that Hylton walked up, yelled an obscenity and “I want to talk to you!” then shoved him as he retrieved the boy’s jersey off the backstop.

“I don’t even know who he is,” Wilson said he told police. “I was trying to grab his arms, trying not to fight.”

Wilson told police that Hylton then punched him several times in the right side before knocking him to the ground, then kept hitting him.

Three other coaches separated the men. The coaches could not be reached for comment Thursday.

“Wilson was clutching his ribs, all out of breath with eyes as big as half-dollars,” said Matt Flynn, who ran up and talked to one of the coaches after the fight stopped.

“I can’t believe a man that age, cold sober, could do something like that 24 hours later,” Flynn said of Hylton. “It’s just too outrageous.”

Because Hylton voluntarily withdrew his son from the all-star team’s final game, no disciplinary action was taken, said Robert Theilen, who was then commissioner for the Orange County Junior All-American Football Assn.