Hey Mike Haywood and everyone else: don’t have babies out of wedlock

January 4, 2011 by John Stansberry
Filed under Uncategorized

I LOVE it when readers put up comments that call me out on something I’ve written. A case in point is the following from a user named “Texas” in response to my recent posting involving Pittsburgh firing Mike Haywood:

For those uninformed people out there… This story has another side to it which includes a Gold digging 34 year woman named Beth who didn’t even tell Coach Haywood she was having his child until 9 months had passed and she was having a complication. She called Haywood and said I’m having your baby and there is a problem. The woman is completely vindictive. Since then, Coach Haywood has been nothing but the ideal father - providing for his son. Beth however threatened that if Haywood didnt marry her that he nor his family would see the child… she started harassing his parents and a restraining order was filed against her. Beth even lives in the home Haywood owns bc he wanted the child to be taken care of and she constantly calls him for money which she spends not on the child….

Who knows, this could be Mike Haywood’s sister posting this stuff, but it did serve to remind me that very few things in life are cut and dried. Also, I gotta admit, I’m one of those types who automatically thinks the perpetrator is a stark raving lunatic when the issue at hand is domestic violence.

Oh what could've been...raving lunatic whenever the issue in question is domestic violence.

Now I’m not taking the word of some anonymous poster as gospel, not by a longshot. When all is said and done I still have no idea what kind of dynamic is at play with Haywood and Beth Marriott (although all indications point to it not being a good one). But Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette got a look at the court documents related to the case and shared the following:

Magistrate Brian Steinke entered the not guilty plea on Mr. Haywood’s behalf and ordered him to have no contact with accuser Beth Marriott, 38, the mother of his 1-year-old son.

According to a court document, Ms. Marriott told St. Joseph County police Officer Diana Landry on Friday that she was angry with Mr. Haywood because she suspected him of seeing another woman in Texas, and because he did not return home from there Thursday night as she expected. She barricaded the door to the house, she said, because Mr. Haywood had given keys to several people.

Mr. Haywood, 46, said he stayed in the South Bend Marriott Hotel on Thursday night because he could not enter his house, the document said. He forced the door open Friday, he said, later showing police a picture he took on his cell phone of a blue pole that he said barricaded the door.

Ms. Marriott said she and Mr. Haywood argued and that she decided to go to her brother’s house with the child and put him in a car in the garage. Mr. Haywood, she said, attempted to take the boy out of the car and pulled her away by wrapping his arm around her neck and throwing her backward, causing her to fall on a wheelbarrow. She said she felt a pop in her neck but no pain, and her arm was “burning and tingling” but she did not know how she hurt it. Ms. Landry wrote that she saw dark red marks on Ms. Marriott’s neck and jaw, a raised mark on her back and redness on her right arm, consistent with her story.

Mr. Haywood said he did not want Ms. Marriott to take the child and that he hadn’t given her permission to use his car. He said he opened the back door to remove the child and Ms. Marriott tried to stop him by grabbing his shirt. He pushed her away with his arm and she fell, he said. He helped her to her feet, then called his attorney. He said Ms. Marriott’s face, neck and chest turn red when she is upset.

Ms. Marriott showed the police officer a temporary custody order that named her as the child’s primary caregiver and required both parents to agree on visitation during the New Year’s holiday.

Mr. Haywood was arrested at 3:10 p.m. Friday and later charged with domestic battery in the presence of a minor, which is a Class D felony in Indiana and carries a sentence of between six months and three years. He was released from jail Saturday afternoon after posting $1,000 bond. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

So it appears that this mess is far from being as simple as Haywood having thrown back some beers and then deciding he wanted to smack his woman around. If you were in a situation where you’ve been barricaded out of your house, I suspect you would be pretty damn pissed at the barricader in question once you got face to face with the person.

It sounds like a bad situation that got progressively worse, because I don’t think Marriott was waiting with a ham sandwich and a smile when Haywood finally got inside the house. Oh, the trials and tribulations of baby mama drama.

I initially wrote that Haywood was a knucklehead for getting charged with this type of crime. And while I’m a little more sympathetic to his plight now that more facts have come to light, I still think he’s a knucklehead. Why? Because you shouldn’t have a baby out of wedlock.

I repeat, DON’T HAVE BABIES OUT OF WEDLOCK. Now some of you might feel judged right now. Some of you might think I’m some conservative bible thumping nutcase (I assure you, I can’t recite a Psalm to save my life). Others of you might think I’m just a prick.

I’ll tell you what I am in regard to this matter: absolutely friggin’ right on the money. Two adults who’ve made a legal commitment to one another and actually enjoy being together are in a MUCH better position to raise a kid than two people whose progeny is the result of a drunken hook up that occurred three hours after they initially met at Club LaVela.

As for single moms or dads who are forced to raise their kids after a divorce, well, they’re nutbags, too. Suck it up and stay together for the kids ($1 to Blink-182). Tough break that you didn’t get the married life you envisioned for yourself when you were a 15-year old spoiled brat.

Just lean into the strike zone and take one on the batting helmet: be a positive influence, put food on the table and set your silly desires aside for the sake of the children you’re responsible for conceiving. They didn’t ask to be here, so keep the team together to give them the best possible chance in succeeding in their own lives.

Let me emphasize that there are no accounts of Mike Haywood being a bad father. If there had been, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten the Pittsburgh job to start with. But when you have a baby out of wedlock, you open yourself up to all kinds of craziness, such as baby mama drama that leads you to being a grown ass man who gets barricaded out of his own house.

This is a cautionary tale, people, so wrap that willie or pop those pills until you’re actually in a good position to raise a kid with the other parent. Not doing so could cost you a very well paying job.

Tags: Beth Marriott, college football, Mike Haywood, Pittsburgh Panthers

ESPN finds the least flattering Mike Haywood clips to announce his firing

January 1, 2011 by John Stansberry
Filed under Uncategorized

5 Comments

So here’s how Mike Haywood’s last part of 2010 and very first part of 2011 have gone: he got hired to coach football at Pittsburgh, got thrown in jail after a domestic violence charge stemming from some baby mama drama and then got fired by Pittsburgh. Just like that, an impressive career that included previous stops at Notre Dame and Texas and most recently as head coach at Miami (OH) has been completely derailed.

Here are more of the particulars provided by ESPN:

Haywood was released on $1,000 cash bond following an incident at his South Bend home, said an officer at the St. Joseph County Jail who declined to give her name. She said Haywood was scheduled to appear in court at 1 p.m. on Monday.

Pittsburgh said it will start looking for a replacement for Haywood.

“We will immediately reopen our search for a head football coach, expanding the process to include a larger pool of candidates,” Nordenberg said in the release. “Our goal is to move swiftly, but prudently, to find the right person to successfully lead the Pitt football program for what we hope will be an extended period of time.”

The charge against Haywood was upgraded from misdemeanor domestic violence to felony domestic battery in the presence of a minor, the officer said. She did not know whether Haywood had an attorney and his phone number was not listed.

Haywood was arrested about 3 p.m. Friday after a custody issue developed with a woman with whom Haywood has a child, police said. The unidentified woman told police that Haywood grabbed her by the arm and neck and pushed her as she tried to leave. (espn.com)

This sounds like knuckleheadedness of the highest order that the newly hired head coach of a Big East school should have avoided. But while Haywood will hopefully get an appropriate punishment, I have to wonder how this will affect his child’s welfare. Papa Haywood has just gone from having a job that would literally pay him millions to having a status that will make it hard for him to get hired to cook food at Ruby Tuesday’s. As a result, child support payments just got a whole lot harder for him to make.

So leave it to ESPN to pile on the guy. Upon announcing his firing, couldn’t they have found clips of him that didn’t involve him making fake punches in the air?:

Tags: domestic violence, Mike Haywood, Mike Haywood arrest, Pittsburgh Panthers, South Bend