After John De Marco received a five-year suspension from coaching, he took the Central Coast Youth Football League (CCYFL) to court, seeking a trial by jury to examine the incident that kicked off the conflict earlier this summer.
On Aug. 17, seven young footballers from the volunteer coach’s team—made up of 24 kids total, between ages 11 and 12—met at Ernest Righetti High School for their baseball team’s practice.
The campus also hosted a youth quarterback training camp for registered participants that day, which caught some of the kids’ attention after they finished up at the baseball diamond, De Marco’s attorney, Amber Simmons, told the Sun.
The private event was not affiliated with CCYFL, she explained.
“When the kids saw that was happening, they asked their dads: ‘Hey, can we stay and put in some football work together, ourselves?’” Simmons said. “These were kids who just got done with baseball practice asking their dads: ‘Can I stay and do some football exercises with my friends?’ Most fathers aren’t going to say no to that. Especially when you’re a dad that loves football.”
One of their parents who works for Righetti had access to the school’s football pads, which he let the kids borrow for the afternoon that Sunday, Simmons continued.
Nearby, some of their CCYFL peers from other teams around the region were taking part in the private quarterback camp on campus.
“While this is happening, a parent from a player from Santa Ynez took a video of the children from Orcutt and their parents, and sent that in to CCYFL, complaining this was an illegal [football] practice,” Simmons said. “Even though their child was literally practicing, but [with] a paid coach.”
Two days later, coach De Marco and the seven Orcutt players were suspended by the CCYFL and Orcutt Youth Football was fined $250 without a warning or a formal investigation, Simmons stated in her client’s complaint, filed in court on Sept. 8.
De Marco retained Simmons’ Orcutt-based law firm in late August with the hope of resolving the dispute outside of court, the local attorney told the Sun. Although De Marco wasn’t at the Sunday gathering, his son was among the seven players present who were suspended.
On Aug. 21, Simmons warned the CCYFL’s executive council that De Marco would file a lawsuit unless the league reversed its actions—including its decision to revoke Orcutt Youth Football’s eligibility from qualifying for American Youth Football’s competitive All-Star program.
“To set the record straight, neither Mr. De Marco nor the Orcutt Youth Football League held a team practice on [Aug. 17], or any other Saturday or Sunday for that matter,” Simmons stated in a letter to CCYFL, which bans its teams from holding team practices during weekends.
“To construe this small, voluntary gathering as ‘practice’ is arbitrary and capricious, at best,” Simmons continued. “This was [not] a team ‘practice’ by any stretch of the imagination or reading of CCYFL rules.”
In an Aug. 26 response to Simmons’ letter, CCYFL President Paco Maldonado described a handful of factors behind the board’s verdict, including the seven-player group’s “use of tackling equipment not generally available for casual recreational use”—including pads, sleds, and helmets.
Maldonado noted that some of the parents present at the Sunday gathering were assistant coaches who volunteered under head coach De Marco with the Orcutt Youth Football League (OYFL). He also pointed out that Righetti High School is where the Orcutt divisions regularly hold team practices.
“The suggestion that this was merely parents and children ‘playing football’ is inconsistent with the evidence and contradicted by the very nature and structure of the activities,” Maldonado wrote.
“The evidence shows OYFL’s own registered players, under the direction of OYFL’s own coaches, on OYFL’s designated home field,” Maldonado continued. “These are unmistakable indicators of an organized football practice conducted in preparation for the OYFL 2025 playing season. … [CCYFL] has a responsibility to uphold the integrity of the league by enforcing the rules that safeguard both player safety and fair competition.”
Maldonado’s letter also addressed Simmons’ reference to the source of the video evidence, a parent of a player with one of CCYFL’s Santa Ynez Valley divisions who was out on the Righetti field that day for the private quarterback training camp.
Taking part in a workshop of that kind on a Saturday or Sunday doesn’t violate the league’s team practice regulations, he explained.
“If a player chooses to attend a clinic or training session with an individual or organization that has no affiliation with CCYFL or its chapters, such activity … is not, and cannot be prohibited by CCYFL rules,” Maldonado wrote.
Although CCYFL has upheld its five-year suspension of De Marco from coaching, the league’s executive council “reconsidered the discipline of the seven players who attended the practice,” Maldonado said. Their suspensions were lifted in late August, prior to the September lawsuit.
“The players themselves were placed in a difficult position by the actions of their coaches and/or parents,” Maldonado wrote. “The council’s goal is to hold adults accountable, not to penalize children. For that reason, the personal suspension of those players is withdrawn.”
De Marco’s attorney Simmons told the Sun that one of the repercussions of the Aug. 17 incident and the video footage tied to it is a lingering fear among the Orcutt division’s players of being constantly monitored.
“That’s been probably one of the saddest things about this entire dispute. It’s ruining relationships between fathers and sons because they had this shared bonding experience,” Simmons said. “Now these kids are afraid to play football with their dads or with their friends outside of an official team practice because they think they are going to get recorded. … They should be applauded for wanting to exercise on a Sunday afternoon instead of just sitting and playing video games all day.”
Simmons said that De Marco’s lawsuit will reach its first court date in February, “but that doesn’t help us now, because football will be done before then.”
She’s currently working on an injunction request, primarily to gain back the Orcutt league’s ability to count their game scores this season—which ends in November—toward being ranked in the annual All-Star program.
Simmons described the motion for an injunction as asking the court for “essentially a time-out—a stop of [CCYFL’s] actions until we can have a trial.”
“A lot of these kids, who are only 11 years old, are blaming themselves for what happened,” Simmons said. “They are not fully developed emotionally and they are blaming themselves. … I personally had the chance to talk to one of the kids. I said, ‘This is not your fault. Don’t blame yourself.’”
Reach Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 18 – Sep 25, 2025.
Upon viewing the video, it is clear that this was a structured practice, not simply a casual gathering of fathers tossing a ball around on a Sunday afternoon. The players are outfitted with pads and helmets, and a football sled is in use. The severity of the penalty is rooted in the chapter’s history of rule violations, with the chapter already under probation for infractions from the previous year.
While I understand the outrage of some parents, their frustration should be directed at the coaches and board members who continue to permit and even encourage this behavior, rather than at the difficult decisions made by CCYFL. I agree that the player penalties may have been too harsh, and I am pleased that some of these have since been rescinded.
Great