Father Gets 45 Days in Jail for Attacking Son’s Coach
The father of a Northridge Little League player was sentenced to 45 days in jail Thursday for attacking and threatening to kill his son’s coach because the boy played only three innings.
San Fernando Superior Court Judge Robert Schuit also sentenced Mitchell Craig Gluckman, 49, to six months of anger management sessions and three years of probation after a jury found Gluckman guilty of one count of battery.
Schuit ordered Gluckman to stay away from the coach and the Northridge Little League complex and to refrain from “any verbal dispute at any sporting event.”
League officials said Gluckman, of Granada Hills, had a long history of verbal disputes at Little League functions.
“This isn’t a brand-new situation for Mitch Gluckman, at least as far as conflict with other people around the Little League goes,” said league President Lee Benson.
Gluckman, who is 5-foot-8 and weighs 300 pounds, was banned from viewing league games several years ago. And last year, the league restricted him to watching from the stands as a result of “overly aggressive” conversations with his son’s coach and other league officials, Benson said.
The Saturday afternoon of April 15, Gluckman showed up at the complex to pick up his 11-year-old son and approached Kirk West, the 48-year-old manager of his son’s team, the Northridge Tigers.
According to prosecutors and witnesses, Gluckman threw his son’s jersey in the coach’s face and slammed him against a truck. “He said, ‘How dare you make my son a three-inning player,’ ” West said.
Gluckman, a part-time city parks employee who said he also coaches softball at Granada Hills High, acknowledged that he had lost his temper.
“I told him I would kill him, [and that] my son would kill his son,” he said. “I said a lot of bad things.”
But Gluckman said he was making hollow threats and that he doesn’t belong in jail.
West, who has spent 17 years as a youth sports coach and referee, disagreed, saying aggressive behavior from parents is on the rise and needs to be addressed.
“When you put on the stripes or the coach’s hat, we’re trying to teach ‘em more than just baseball,” he said. “It’s a lesson in life. When an adult takes it into his own hands to go beyond that, it’s just not right. Now maybe some guy’s gonna think twice before he acts like a lunatic on a Little League field.”
Benson and West stressed that Gluckman is the exception to the rule at the normally mellow Northridge Little League. But youth sports experts around the country have grown increasingly concerned about the degeneration of manners and morals among parents. In July, a man was killed in a fight at a children’s hockey game in Reading, Mass. A few weeks earlier, a Little League first-base coach broke an umpire’s jaw in Davie, Fla.
Deputy City Atty. Jina Kim said sentences in such cases need to send a strong message. She said she had originally asked that Gluckman be banned from viewing his children’s sporting events.
“I think there are a lot of parents who live vicariously through their kids, but it becomes a problem when their actions lead to violence,” she said.
Gluckman, a single parent of two, is to begin serving his time March 12. He said Schuit offered to let him sign up for a work furlough, which would allow him to work during the day and serve in jail at night. But it costs money to participate in that program, and Gluckman said he isn’t sure he can afford it.
Friends and even Little League board members have offered the children a place to stay while their father serves his time.
Although Gluckman admits he was wrong, he said he can’t believe it has come to this. “I always stuck up for my kids,” he said. “I didn’t always do it the right way. I’m a loud guy.”
The Northridge Little League gained national attention in 1994 when its 11- and 12-year-old all-star team won the national Little League championship months after the Northridge earthquake, earning them the nickname, “The Earthquake Kids.”
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Times researcher Ron Weaver contributed to this story.
