Coach, Player Scuffle in Wild Match

AGOURA — The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating a scuffle between a high school tennis coach and a 17-year-old player from an opposing team.

Deputies from the Juvenile Intervention Unit visited the Agoura High campus Thursday to question Coach Stewart Limbert about his altercation with Alexander Jensen, a Norwegian exchange student at Royal High.

The incident erupted during what witnesses called the “loudest, rowdiest” tennis match they had ever seen.

No criminal charges have been filed in the case. Accounts of the incident vary widely.

“[Limbert] put both his hands on my neck,” Jensen said. “He started strangling me and then he threw me against the fence and then he threw me on the ground, on the cement.”

Agoura officials asked Limbert not to comment.

“The coach felt physically threatened,” Agoura Principal Jim Christianson said. “If an employee feels physically threatened, he has to protect himself.”

Both sides say the trouble began when Limbert and several Agoura parents grew impatient with boisterous Royal players during Wednesday’s match at Agoura.

“You could feel the tension escalating,” said Carla Huffman, who came to watch a friend’s son play for the home team.

With Agoura on its way to a 12-6 victory, Limbert asked Royal Coach Bill Hardy to quiet his players. Jensen took exception.

“[Limbert] was saying that my coach was a bad influence,” Jensen said. “I got really mad and upset about this. I told him to [expletive deleted].”

Jensen said that Limbert’s response was: “You’re out of here. You’re gone.”

The two separated briefly. That’s where accounts begin to differ.

According to Jensen, the coach and several Agoura parents backed him against a fence. He said Limbert told him: “Is this the way you want it?”

Then, Jensen said, the coach assaulted him.

But two witnesses tell a different story.

They claim it was Jensen who came storming back, screaming obscenities and looking for a fight. Huffman and Robert Heiken, an Agoura parent, said they tried to block Jensen’s way but he pushed them aside.

Jensen approached Limbert, screamed in his face and gave him two quick shoves, Heiken said.

“[Limbert] grasped the kid around the bottom of his neck and slammed him up against the fence to restrain him,” said Heiken, whose son plays for Agoura. “They both went down on the ground because [Limbert] was still holding on. The parents kind of separated them.”

Jensen said he suffered an abrasion on his back from being thrown down. He retreated to an area away from the tennis courts while the match resumed.

Later, Hardy asked Jensen and other Royal players to apologize to the Agoura parents, which they did.

“I understand that I shouldn’t have done what I did,” Jensen said. “But [Limbert] is a coach. What he did is fully unacceptable.”

Said Heiken: “I don’t think anyone can justify Coach [Limbert] physically manhandling a kid. But I certainly understand how he was getting provoked. The kid was blowing kisses in his face. It was ugly.”

Jensen’s host family took him to a sheriff’s department substation Wednesday night to file a criminal complaint. Det. Michael Berg said the investigation is ongoing.

In the meantime, Royal and Agoura administrators said they are conducting investigations of their own.