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A New Jersey mom’s reaction to her daughter’s soccer game has touched off a firestorm in two South New Jersey communities following a physical dispute between her daughter and another player. What has emerged is a bitter disagreement between what constitutes accountability and what constitutes bullying in the social media area, and how much is too much when it comes to parental involvement in student sports.

Parents becoming overinvolved in youth sports is nothing new, but this recent viral moment shared by an irate mother highlights that in the age of social media and in the court of public opinion, rash decisions, especially where children are concerned, have consequences that go much farther than just a keyboard warrior’s comments.

A girls’ soccer team has been banned after a mom complained about a violent foul.

On-field dramatics are nothing new in sports, whether it’s the pros or high school athletes, as in this case. But the way this particular incident has played out has left many in South Jersey shocked.

It all began when mom Lauren Astore was attending her daughter’s Monroe Township soccer game against Woodstown Borough, both part of the South Jersey Girls Soccer League. A player from the Woodstown Borough team lost her cool, grabbed Astore’s daughter, and violently shoved her.

Without a doubt, the incident is pretty shocking. The Woodstown Borough player didn’t just push Astore’s daughter, but could be seen in a video of the moment yanking her back and forth by the neck and then violently ramming her face-first into the grass.

The game’s referee quickly threw the yellow card, indicating a foul. But that was far from the end of the incident, which rapidly escalated into a furious online campaign that has some outraged parents and officials on both sides of the debate. 

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The League chose to ban the victim’s team, not the aggressor’s, leaving many parents furious.

In the aftermath of the game, Astore was not satisfied with a foul merely being called. She wanted accountability from the team’s and league’s leadership, as well as the girl’s parents, for what she called an “assault” on her daughter.

The post quickly went viral, with many people agreeing with Astore that the yellow card, which denotes a warning about illegal behavior, should have been a red card, which results in the offending player’s ejection from the game.

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In what Astore called an act of “retaliation,” the South Jersey Girls Soccer League kicked Astore’s daughter’s 14-person team out of the league. “Rather than just addressing the actions of the player, the coach/club president, or the referee involved, the league has instead chosen to ban the victims’ team,” Astore wrote in a Facebook post. “To us, this feels like retaliation. It’s heartbreaking. And it’s appalling.”

Scores of comments showed up from people agreeing with Astore, given the blatantly intentional nature of the incident in question. But what started out as a quest for justice quickly metastasized into what many are calling online bullying of a teenage girl, including attempts to ruin her future academic and athletic career.

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The league and many parents insist Astore was bullying the offending player and have stood their ground.

After Astore complained, the League did take action against both the player and the referee, issuing the former a suspension and reprimanding the ref for throwing the yellow card on what clearly should have been a red card foul.

“What the mom initially had wanted — and the coach initially wanted — was for the child to be suspended, and for the referee to be either suspended or given supplemental education,” Aaron Aufield, one of the League’s volunteer board members, told NJ.com. “The fact of the matter is, both of those things happened.”

Astore was not satisfied with these results, however, and the uproar that ensued online when she continued pressing the matter resulted in what many are calling cyberbullying. According to comments reviewed by NJ.com, parents, including Astore herself, were seen calling the offending player “trash,” “evil,” and using expletives directed at the teenager in various Facebook posts and comments. 

League officials said this is why they moved to ban the Monroe team, and claimed that parents acted far worse than any of the teens did. They said they are holding firm on their decision in order to protect players, coaches, and referees alike. 

The two teams have a history of contentious games and altercations between parents.

The incident between the player and Astore’s daughter came on the heels of previously contentious games between the two teams, and NJ.com reported that the shoving incident didn’t just stop at the yellow card and Astore’s complaints. Witnesses said a Monroe parent actually stormed onto the field to confront the ref, and that Astore was seen leaving her seat as well. 

Officials have pointed out that these are not even academic leagues, but volunteer-run municipal leagues that provide an experience that is a step up from a city recreational league.

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As Sean Caparros, president of the Woodstown Soccer Club and the coach on the sideline the day of the now infamous shove, put it, “We’re not talking about adults and the World Cup here. It’s a kid who lost emotional control because she thought she was getting bullied earlier on.” He added that everyone involved had made it “much bigger… than it really was.”

Astore, however, vehemently disagrees about both the nature of the situation and the stakes at hand. “This is about how those in power respond when they’re asked to do the right thing,” she told NJ.com. “It’s about how silence, stonewalling, abuse of power, and sudden decisions without transparency send a chilling message to every family in this league: Stay quiet or risk losing everything.” 

Perhaps Astore truly feels like she needs to advocate for her daughter in this scenario, but there’s no denying that it’s impossible to demand kids act with any sense of sportsmanlike conduct when their parents are the ones behaving badly. Perhaps it’s the adults who should be lined up after the game and forced to shake hands regardless of who wins or loses.

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John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.