Ohio High School Football Coach Moves Vending Machine In Front Of Refs Locker Room Door So They Can Sit And Think About Their Bad Calls

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Keith Dalton and his crew of high school football referees, say they were officiating a game between Grove City High School and Central Crossing High School last Friday, when after the game they suddenly got locked inside the Grove City locker room.

Dalton believes this action was taken against him and his crew for a controversial call made during the game, after which he says an assistant coach for Grove City came onto the field and was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Once the game ended, Dalton says he and his crew were inside the locker room being evaluated on their performance, when the door was barricaded from the outside with a vending machine.

I've been sitting here thinking about this story for twenty minutes now and I still can't figure out whether it's funny or not. On one hand, it is absolutely hilarious that a high school football coach was so upset with the referees that he waited until they went into their locker room and then moved a vending machine (approximately 700 pounds) in front of it so they couldn't get out. And not just a high school football coach, an ASSISTANT high school football coach. The type of guy that eats, sleeps, and breathes Grove City football....but just not quite sharp enough to ever get the head job. A lifelong assistant that would run through a brick wall for his Greyhounds and if anyone stands in the way of that, he'll run them over too. So refs, I hope you boys brought your blankets and pillows with you, because you're sleeping in the locker room tonight while you think about that missed holding call when Central Crossing picked up a 3rd and 6 in the middle of the 3rd quarter and cost us the Battle of 62.

In Grove City, no less! Honestly, thank God the refs even made it out of this place alive, and that this coach didn't do something crazier after losing the Battle of 62 on his home turf. He simply took his frustration out by blocking in the refs with a 700 pound vending machine. That's just funny.

But on the other hand, from a more mature perspective, maybe this guy shouldn't be working with kids. Because he's a certified lunatic. What do you think he said in his postgame speech? I can tell you it wasn't that you can't blame the refs for losses and you need to control what you can control. It was probably more like "Boys, we got screwed tonight. But don't worry.....I'll handle it". A great life lesson. And in what world does he think he gets away with this? Do you think the refs were just going to bang on the doors until someone heard them, and when they find out that a vending machine was blocking them in the very door they just entered, they would just think "Hmmm that's weird" and leave? No, refs are literally snitches by profession. And it didn't take the FBI to figure out that prime suspect #1 was the assistant coach that ran onto the field and was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct about 20 minutes before.

If I was the principal of this school, I'd toss Coach a cardboard box and tell him to get everything from his '96 letterman's jacket to his bag of dirt from the old field before they got turf off his desk. He's fired. But alas, I'm not the principal and this here is Ohio high school football.

Dalton says both the principal and head coach of Grove City High School, issued him an apology. He also says the assistant coach who berated them was suspended for a game.

One game? Almost more absurd than the initial moving of the vending machine. Talk about a slap on the wrist. If he was going to go that route, the principal should've just sent the refs an apology saying "I'm really sorry……that you guys missed all of those calls last night."