Well, you hate to see these things. Often two sides to the story, and often enough just one side, the opposite of that in the paper. He's a nice kid. Fathered a little boy that he loves dearly, and the girlfriend decides to break up with him.
I chaired a hearing panel on a coach suspension for something similar last month. One of the other panel members was in charge of domestic violence investigations in the Minneapolis PD. After we got done taking testimony, we met by telephone conference to discuss the decision. We agreed the guy had been set-up and screwed by his "ex." It was obvious she was creating a "paper" trail for legal purposes, and goading and setting her "ex" up at every turn. The detective recalled similar events in her career. Even for me, I was shocked at some of the manipulations of people and events in order to "get" vindictive and legal advantages in custody disputes; literally picking fights meaning for them to be violent. Yes, "there's no excuse" is the old refrain, but custody brings out the worst emotions in everyone, and even in the best people, perhaps because they take their kids even more seriously. Not to say that is the case here. Even nice kids can have temper problems, and if so, they need to fix it.
Coach did the right thing. Have to let the legal system run its course.