A controversy within a youth football league is about much bigger issues.

Danny Contreras is not ashamed of who he is, and he is a lot of things. He’s a father, a husband, a government worker who manages a treatment program for substance abuse disorders in Santa Cruz County. He’s also a formerly convicted felon who paroled out of prison in 2011 after serving 12 years for voluntary manslaughter, the result of a plea agreement he accepted after involvement in a murder in Paso Robles when he was 17.

The now-43-year-old is not shy about telling his whole story, because he thinks it can be a source of power to teens of today. He regularly shares his story – of redemption, of faith, of self-awareness – with youth groups, church groups and more. “I try to show them they don’t have to live a life of crime or drugs,” Contreras says. “Somebody like them, who they can relate to, has made it out of all that. Drugs and gangs and crime are not going to lead them anywhere other than to more drugs and crime, and death.”

After prison, Contreras returned home to Salinas and bought a house down the street from his grandpa. Passionate about football, he got involved starting in 2019 as a football coach for the Alisal Eagles, which his two older children, 8 and 10, play for. (The youngest, at 3, will be able to play starting next year.) “It keeps them healthy and active,” Contreras says. “You can learn a lot of things through football – discipline, life lessons. It’s more than winning games.”

It has all the markings of another positive arc in the narrative of Contreras’ story. However, it’s become a mess.

In Contreras’ telling, the trouble began when he started asking questions about the Eagles’ financials, and why it was so expensive to join the team. (Registration plus required fundraisers for last year’s season totaled $1,105. Compare that to $315 for the Seaside Raiders or $500 for the Toro Bulls, two of the other teams in the 12-team Monterey Bay Youth Football League.)

Each team and the league itself are nonprofits, or they should be. Contreras discovered the Eagles were not registered as a 501(c)(3). Reluctantly, he ran for the team board and last fall was elected as president. His first order of business was to get the team registered as a nonprofit, which the IRS confirmed in January.

Contreras realizes that asking questions and challenging leadership is not a way to make friends. But on July 1, when he was informed by members of the MBYFL board he would have to resign from the Eagles board and from coaching, he smelled retaliation. California law now requires youth leaders to undergo a Livescan background check, and his showed the criminal record he speaks openly and publicly about, with no history of child abuse.

He sees his removal as an act of retaliation for past whistle-blowing. He wrote to the MBYFL that in the July 1 meeting, board members told him, “They could choose to not have someone like me with my background represent the league.”

Someone like me. This is not even coded language to suggest that someone with a past like Contreras’ is not fit to lead kids, even though he is fit to run a drug treatment program, and fit to share the story of his past in hopes that he can guide teens today to make different choices.

Members of the MBYFL board did not respond to requests for an interview, but parents associated with other teams spoke to the Weekly on the condition of anonymity, for they too fear retaliation.

“Once the [MBYFL board] gets a chip on their shoulder about you, they don’t stop,” one parent says. “It borders the line with harassment and retaliation.” While they are unfamiliar with the details of the Alisal Eagles saga, they say it’s consistent with a pattern of bullying; perhaps questions about fitness to lead should also include questions about bullying behaviors.

Football season goes on; practice began July 29. After Contreras was pushed out, his wife, Claudia Sandoval, previously a vice president, became president. They and other parents are exploring the possibility of creating an entirely separate league.

“I don’t think MBYFL will correct itself,” Contreras says. “If they won’t, I’m [going to] start a new league and treat people right.”

Treating people right is a good baseline for any youth sports league.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com