Cleveland youth football coach stops parent from driving onto packed field

Danny Solomon’s players call him Coach Boom.

That’s the nickname he picked up as an accident-prone kid. A kid who was always falling and running into things.

On Saturday, though, the youth football coach didn’t stumble.

When a parent plowed an SUV through an open gate and straight toward the packed field at John Adams College & Career Academy, Solomon acted. Fast.

He grabbed the unlocked passenger door, hurled himself inside and threw the Jeep Compass into park. Then, he wrestled the keys away from the woman behind the wheel.

“It was almost like a scene from a movie, where you see a stuntman diving through a window of a moving vehicle,” said Jason Dunn, the director of the Cleveland Muny Football League. “Everything just slowed down. It was kind of surreal.”

'I don't know how he did it'

The century-old football league brings thousands of kids together, reaching families in Cleveland and the inner-ring suburbs.

On springtime Saturdays, the big game is flag football. And the players are the youngest kids – ages 5 to 10, with parents cheering them on.

At John Adams, the league runs three games at once. Hundreds of kids were playing or preparing to play Saturday afternoon when a fight broke out between adults and teenagers near the gate.

The argument started over a lost cell phone, according to a police report. A woman went to the concession stand to look for her son’s phone. When she didn’t find it, things got heated. From the police report, it’s unclear exactly how – and why – the situation escalated.

“Once I talked to her, she got kind of disrespectful to me and got physical, as far as shoving me,” Dunn said. “It was all bets off after that.”

Eventually, the woman ran to her car. Dunn thought she was about to leave. Instead, she drove up onto the sidewalk, through the entrance gate and right at the field.

That’s when Solomon came running up, “like the superhero he is,” Dunn said.

“I don’t know how he did it,” Dunn added, “but that was a heroic act.”

'A very isolated incident'

The woman, who lives in Cleveland Heights, was arrested. She's facing a charge of felonious assault, according to Cleveland Municipal Court records. A judge set her bond at $50,000 on Tuesday morning.

She told police that “she was in fear for her life and just started driving, and did not realize that she was driving onto the football field,” according to the incident report.

Solomon said she seemed to be in a rage.

“It just really, really dumbfounds me, what her mentality was at that time,” he said, adding that a game was going on 20 to 30 feet away.

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"I didn't have time to really think about it or process it, though. So it was just really a reaction," he said of jumping into the car.

Solomon is the coordinator for the Garden Valley Falcons youth football program on Cleveland’s East Side. On Saturday afternoon, his team was just about to play.

“It’s electric, you know,” he said of the scene, where parents ring the field and cheer their children on. “It’s the most exciting thing. These kids look forward to it.”

But his team missed their game. The rest of the events were canceled.

In three decades of coaching, Solomon has seen a lot. But Saturday was a surprise.

“It’s unfortunate,” he said, “because we haven’t really needed any type of security. The games have gone on without a hitch. … This was a very isolated incident.”

'Beyond X's and O's'

Images posted on social media focused on a man pointing a gun at the car. Dunn said the man was a private security officer who didn't have to use that gun, thanks to Solomon.

“Oftentimes, people look for the negative stuff. And … negative stories always get the most traction on social media,” Solomon said. “That’s why I was willing to do this story, because I wanted to make sure we got the positive side of what happened.”

Dunn said the incident highlights the need for better mental health support in the community – and the recognition that parents and families need more help.

“To go to this extreme, this woman couldn’t have been in her right state of mind,” he said. “And right now, I’m worried about her mental health.”

The football league can take additional safety precautions, he said. But some problems can't be solved on the field.

Today, Dunn's just thankful for Coach Boom.

“Having a man like him, this is the reason we do what we do,” he said. “Men like that out there, protecting lives of children and families. The word coach goes beyond X’s and O’s.”