IF DERRICK GARRETT’s message wasn’t clear before, it should be reading like crystal now.
Ricardo Yearwood is being shown the door from local basketball.
The mercurial Cavs’ forward has been served with a life ban by Garrett and his Barbados Amateur Basketball Association (BABA) executive council for his highly-publicised dropkick of Keith Mayers last week.
The ruling was revealed by an inside source following an emergency meeting of the BABA on Wednesday to ratify the decision on the incident.The ban comes less than a week after the president sent an email to the general body saying the BABA will not tolerate any bad or abusive behaviour shown by players and coaches.Yearwood was immediately ejected from last week Tuesday’s Premier League contest between Cavaliers and Cougars after reacting from an elbow from Mayers by stunningly drop-kicking the opposing point guard in his neck in the second quarter.
The incident was met with island-wide disgust after the kick was shown multiple times on the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation before it quickly spread across social networks Facebook and YouTube within hours of being televised.Yearwood was then called to a meeting with the BABA’s disciplinary meeting earlier this week before the executive council handed down the final decision.
The ruling has a stipulation that allows for the decision to be reviewed after ten years, while the BABA also requested that Yearwood receive professional counselling.
The temperamental Cavs forward was just one of four of Station Hill’s Premier League players – and six people overall – to be disciplined this week following a slew of reports citing verbal abuse of referees.Cavs centre Kelvin Patterson has been hit with a lengthy three-month suspension, while long-time frontcourt mate Andrew Alleyne was served with a two-game ban.
Fellow Cavs’ player Errol “Flash” Pollard has also been suspended indefinitely pending a meeting with the disciplinary committee today.
Sonics forward Bernard Howell will have to miss the next three games, while Pinelands coach Gregory “Coppa” Paul has been suspended for the remainder of the Premier League’s first round.“We have reached the stage where this behaviour cannot be allowed to continue and we have mandated the disciplinary committee to institute very severe penalties for those players and coaches who are found guilty of verbally abusing referees,” wrote Garrett in the email.
“We have received no fewer than eight reports over the last months where players have verbally abused referees. Unless we address this situation the game will come to a sudden end, as we are losing the few referees that we have.”
Garrett declined to comment on the matter, saying his executive was looking at holding a press conference today to address the situation.