Parents and student defend bear crawl coach

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A group of parents and students came to the defense of a high school coach who they said did no wrong in making swimmers do bear crawls on the track.

In a story KENS 5 brought you first on Monday, a former swimmer at Reagan High School in the Northeast ISD said the head swim coach punished several swimmers because they were late to practice in February. The girls were made to do bear crawls on the track. The punishment left one swimmer, Stacia Trujillo, with blisters on her hands and bruises on her body.

In defense of the coach, several swimmers said bear crawls are part of their training. One swimmer said she did bear crawls along with Trujillo. She said the coach didn’t realize the exercise hurt their hands.

“‘Cause he told us afterwards, like after everything had cooled down, he said he was really sorry and he didn’t want to hurt our hands,” said Bethany Flummer.

Image courtesy of the U.S. Army, CC BY 2.0