Members of the Arbutus Golden Eagles recreation football program are seeing red after discovering a memorial near its game field on the campus of Arbutus Middle School had been vandalized this week.
Matt Kuhn, president of the Arbutus Athletic Association that sponsors football teams and cheerleaders for ages 5-13, said three large rocks honoring three former members had been spray-painted some time between Monday night and Tuesday.
The rocks, which had been painted red with yellow numbers, the program's colors, were sprayed with graffiti in black paint.
The stones honor Carl "Thunder" Clinton, a coach who died of cancer August 2008, and Tyquise Moore and Jaquise Manigo, two brothers who died on Sept. 22 last year.
"They mean a whole lot to us," said Kuhn, who coaches the 11-13 age group team. "It's like a gravestone. For my team in particular, whenever we're coming from Shelborne Road to the game field, we make sure we're touching the rocks."
"The reaction from people who have been part of our organization has just been pure outrage," he said.
The rock memorializing Clinton is the biggest of the three and has the number 65 painted on it.
The two smaller rocks were set on each side of Clinton's last fall after Tyquise, 11, and Jaquise, 7, died along with their mother, Michelle Manigo, 33, in a house fire in Baltimore.
Tyquise's 74 is painted on one stone and Jaquise's 48 is painted on the other.
The Arbutus Golden Eagles' teams will kick off the program's 86th season this fall.
Teams compete in the 6-8, 7-9. 8-10, 9-11, 10-12 and 11-13 age groups in the Mid-Atlantic Youth Football and Cheer League.
Kuhn said he plans to have the stones repainted as soon as possible.
An effort to cover the graffiti in red paint failed because the black paint bled through, Kuhn said.
The program will spend between $50 and $100 to prime and repaint the stones.
"It's going to be fairly labor intensive and paint's not cheap," Kuhn said. "It's not crazy, but that's money we have to spend on other things."
Kuhn asked for anyone with information about the incident to contact the team through its website, http://www.arbutusgoldeneagles.com.
