The Penobscot County District Attorney’s Office may have closed the case against longtime Bangor High School Athletic Director Steve Vanidestine – he may be back to work and he may have publicly apologized to the young man he assaulted – but there are still unresolved issues here.

Vanidestine was accused of assaulting 18-year-old David Brookings Jr. back in February as Brookings and some friends were walking onto the gymnasium floor to congratulate the Bangor High School basketball team on its win over rival Brewer High.

The athletic director was out of control and acted excessively, according to District Attorney R. Christopher Almy, but he could not be prosecuted because of a Maine statute that allows for some force to be used in the name of crowd control. Meanwhile, Vanidestine was suspended from his job without pay for three weeks and remained on paid leave for several more weeks while fulfilling certain “requirements” designated by the school department. He returned to work on April 19.

Letters to media outlets and shoptalk about the city make it clear that community opinion varies widely on the outcome.

A difference of opinion is fine, but I’m starting to suspect that too often the opinions in this matter are based on circumstances that have nothing to do with this particular case, but instead are more relevant to the almost obscene level of emotion surrounding youth sports.

Vanidestine has been the athletic director at Bangor High for 22 years. In case you’ve just moved here, let me tell you that youth sports are pretty important business in this city. Vanidestine has had plenty of time to make plenty of friends and enemies.

Here’s my bet.

If you lined up all of Vanidestine’s most vocal supporters, you would find that most of their kids had a good experience as a Bangor High athlete. Line up his detractors, and you’ll probably find a large number of them whose kids sat on the bench.

Neither is good reason to support or not support him in this case.

This case was about physical force, how much to use and under what circumstances it is appropriate.

The whole scene was caught on tape, and in describing that tape, Almy in part stated: “What that does show is that you have a bunch of young boys basically walking out onto a basketball court to say congratulations to their friends. Then you see an athletic director coming out from the side at a high rate of speed. He comes out onto the court and immediately starts using force to get one particular individual off the court, and it was excessive.”

He went on to call the physical contact “unwarranted” and “inappropriate,” saying Vanidestine was out of control. Then, of course, he noted that there was really nothing his office could do about it.

Something almost seems inappropriate about that.

Across the country, fans and players have been seriously injured in “celebration” crushes at sporting events, and Vanidestine was not wrong in his intention to prevent the students from going onto the floor.

But the way he did it sure was wrong.

There can’t be that much disagreement about that.

Whether the discipline was appropriate or whether the DA made the right decision may be at issue.

But our opinions shouldn’t be based on whether our kids sat out the season on the bench.

Renee Ordway can be reached at Rordway@bangordailynews.net