A former Clover High School soccer player has sued the Clover School District, alleging a teacher and coach grabbed him by the throat and drove him to the ground during a class scrimmage in 2024, that administrators saw the surveillance video the same day, and that no one at the school called law enforcement.
The complaint was filed Aug. 13 in the York County Court of Common Pleas, Sixteenth Judicial Circuit, under case number 2026CP4602874. The complaint say the student was 17 and enrolled at Clover High when the incident occurred and has since reached the age of majority, so he sues in his own name. The district is the only defendant. The coach, identified in the filing as Graham Paul Stafford, is described throughout but is not named as a party.
The complaint invokes the gross negligence exception in the South Carolina Tort Claims Act, which strips a district of its usual immunity for the supervision and protection of students when it exercises that responsibility in a grossly negligent manner. All four causes of action rest on that theory.
What the complaint alleges
The student was in a soccer class scrimmage at Clover High on the morning of Oct. 2, 2024, playing against a team that included Stafford, according to the filing. Stafford set the ball at midfield and turned away. The student moved it. Stafford then charged several yards at him, took him by the throat and forced him to the ground, the complaint says.
Administrators knew that day and had access to the video, but no district employee reported it, the complaint alleges. The father called the York County Sheriff’s Office on Oct. 17, 2024. A deputy reviewed the footage and saw Stafford move quickly at the student and push him down, according to the filing, which cites case number SO202410134.
Stafford was charged Oct. 19, 2024, with assault and battery in the third degree and later entered the Sixteenth Circuit Solicitor’s Pretrial Intervention Program, the complaint says. The program required an apology, in which Stafford said he had “acted wrongly and inappropriately” and called himself the sole reason the relationship broke down.
The district’s response
The district put Stafford on leave for about a week, then let him resign, the complaint says. It alleges the district did not fire him, did not disclose why he left, and did nothing to keep him from working with students elsewhere.
Before he left, Stafford met the parents and said the student had been pushing his buttons and needed toughening up, the filing alleges.
History alleged in the complaint
Stafford had a record of losing his temper with students well before that day, the filing says, including grabbing one by the throat and shoving him against a locker, and slide tackling a player in training hard enough to break his leg. It alleges that student’s medical bills were paid for the family’s silence, that other coaches, teachers and administrators knew, and that families feared retaliation for raising concerns. Stafford had held the job about four years.
The suit pleads negligence and gross negligence, negligent hiring, negligent supervision and negligent retention. The complaint seeks actual damages set by a jury plus costs, with no dollar figure stated. Joshua E. Slavin and Denasia U. Mahome of Mount Pleasant represent him.
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Thomas Hyslip lives in Tega Cay with his wife and daughter. After 27 years in the U.S. Army and Federal Law Enforcement, he retired to pursue his passion for teaching. Tom is now an Assistant Professor of Instruction at the University of South Florida. In 2 short years he has won 10 awards from the South Carolina Press Association, including first place in column writing, education beat reporting and best podcast.
