COBB COUNTY, Ga. — A judge sentenced a Mableton man to five years in prison for punching out a Pebblebrook High football coach in Oct. 2008.
Ronald Lee will also have to serve 10 years of probation for the attack.
The judge could have sentenced Lee to 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors said the attack happened after the coach made the defendant's son run sprints after practice.
Prosecutors told jurors this was a case of a parent upset with the way the coach was handling his son.
"I didn't say a word. I turned and when I turned that's when he stepped closer and he hit me," said Preston Moses in court Tuesday.
Moses is the assistant football coach at Pebblebrook High School. During the 2008 season, he made Ronald Lee's son run wind-sprints as discipline for missing part of a class. Days later, Moses testified, the father punched him out without provocation. The coach's 7-year-old son was right beside him.
"My kid was just going crazy and I didn't understand exactly why. I knew (the defendant) had done something, I didn't know exactly what it was. I knew I was hit and when I looked down I was just covered in blood and that's why my kid...he was just screaming, 'Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,'" said Moses.
Moses went to the hospital. The cut was so deep, it required stitches and he will eventually need plastic surgery to repair the scar tissue in and around his mouth.
Several former football players testified they witnessed the attack. One player testified that the one punch did so much damage because Lee had something in his hand.
"I (saw) like a roll of pennies," one football player testified.
But Lee's attorney told jurors it was the bombastic coach who was the aggressor. They claim Moses sent veiled threats through Lee's son to the parents and on that day Lee acted in self-defense.
"When Lee approached the coach and the coach turned around in an aggressive manner, as if he was going to hit my client and my client tried to block the hit and ended up hitting the coach," said defense attorney Lagrant Anthony.
WSBTV
