KEITH MAYERS doesn’t want to hear sad stories.
The damage is already done.
Humbled and humiliated, Mayers has dismissed Ricardo Yearwood’s apology and is currently looking into filing a civil law suit against the banned basketballer for last month’s highly-publicized dropkick during a Premier League encounter.
The veteran point guard made his intentions known during a telephone interview with SUNSPORT a week after Yearwood issued his public apology.
“I’m waiting to hear from Andrew [Pilgrim] because I want to know why this man kicked me,” Mayers said after receiving the advice from his parents.
“I just don’t want anyone to feel that I’m hunting him or looking to go out and hurt him.”
Mayers’ possible suit comes as the latest development of the ugly on-court incident, which happened a month ago when Yearwood stunningly dropkicked the Cougars playmaker during a Premier League contest.
Yearwood has since received a life ban before showing regret over the incident in a televised interview with the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) Ceyne Jones last Sunday.
But the apology appears to have fallen on deaf ears, as Mayers questions his sincerity following Yearwood’s subsequent injunction against the life ban.
“Why did it take so long?” asked Mayers of Yearwood’s apology.
“If he was actually sorry why did he wait until a month rather than apologizing the next night?
“He waited a month after things [have been] blown up all over the world [so] I really don’t want to hear him.”
According to Mayers, his life has been thrown into turmoil since the incident due to the constant heckling, finger-pointing and sniggering to which he has been subjected.
Mayers went as far as to suggest that he went days without eating or sleeping before he made a decision to quit playing basketball.
“I haven’t been me. I don’t feel like doing anything because my mind just isn’t into it,” expressed Mayers.
“It isn’t easy because every time I go somewhere I keep hearing ‘that’s the man that get jump kick’.
“Then I get calls with people saying all sort of things like ‘don’t tek that’ and ‘cool yourself and forget about that’, when I’m just trying to blank this whole thing.”
The incident even led to Mayers launching into a verbal tirade against Yearwood’s head coach Adrian Craigwell.
Yearwood’s dropkick became the centre of a national debate after video of the incident was televised multiple times on CBC before going viral on social sites facebook and YouTube.
But Mayers still doesn’t understand what prompted Yearwood’s action, reasoning that any contact the forward received before the kick was merely incidental.
“I don’t have to play anybody dirty, so I just want to know why this man kicked me,” said Mayers.
“I didn’t know it was so vicious until I saw it on television, and when I saw this thing I said to myself, ‘wait, he could’ve break my neck there’.”
Along with Mayers’ possible civil suit, Barbados Amateur Basketball Association president Derrick Garrett also filed a police complaint against Yearwood after receiving a “stare-down” and verbal tirade.
