Coach’s family speaks up after accusations of racism

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    SPRINGFIELD, Tennessee (WSMV) — After a mother accused a Springfield Middle School baseball coach of racial discrimination and was subsequently banned from games after using racial slurs herself, the coach’s sister-in-law is going to bat for him.

A Springfield Middle School parent was suspended after yelling those slurs the coach and using them on Facebook.

“She’s fabricated the whole story,” Audrey Hanchett said. “To attack someone with such exemplary character; it’s very disturbing.”

“I’m not racist,” Latoya Groves told News4 Thursday. “I’m not prejudiced, he’s prejudiced.” Last week she accused the coach, a black man, of discriminating against her son and other boys on the team, who are also black.

“Don’t they think it’s racist that he won’t play any black kids?” Groves said.

Groves told News4 Thursday Coach Cumberbatch was benching black players, and that he only let her son play after she complained. According to Hanchett, and independent corroboration by News4, Groves’ son pitched 14 times in last Monday night’s game, and his cousin, also on the team, played the Friday before that.

“I’ve seen her story change over the last week, you know, it’s gone from ‘you don’t play black boys’ to ‘you think 14 pitches is enough time you think batting at the end of the game is enough time?'” Hanchett said. “There are actually victims of racial discrimination out there and I feel like this takes away from their story.”

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