In an angry e-mail blast Nov. 20, Richmond Sheriff C.T. Woody Jr. scuttled the sheriff’s deputy basketball team.

“There will no longer be a Sheriff basketball team,” he wrote in an e-mail to the team obtained by Style Weekly. “We are suppose [sic] to be professionals at all times and this has not been so. The same old bickering and no leadership or accountability.”

The reasons for nixing the team are unclear. Sources say a squad of sheriff’s deputies planned to participate in a law enforcement basketball tournament hosted by the Chesapeake Sheriff’s Office at the South Norfolk Community Center Nov. 17-18. A deputy with the Henrico County Sheriff’s Office confirms that the Richmond team was scheduled to play, “but it fell apart” because of some sort of miscommunication.

“I was shocked to find out that you guys did not play but one game due to forfeits,” Woody wrote in the e-mail. “What a waste. Everyone that participated with the tournament was aware of how disorganized our Sheriff department was. What a shame.”

An event organizer tells Style the team wasn’t to blame. An injury knocked things off schedule, and several teams inadvertently ended up forfeiting games.

Woody declined to discuss the team’s breakup and vented his frustration at Style for reporting “junk.” When asked about the e-mail he sent to sheriff’s deputies involved with the team, Woody hung up. A team from the Chesterfield Juvenile Detention Home ended up winning the November tournament.

Whatever the disagreement, it prompted Sheriff Woody to establish tight restrictions on the department’s extracurricular activities. Tara Dunlop, a sheriff’s office spokeswoman, declined to discuss specifics but confirms that Sheriff Woody had indeed disbanded the team.

Woody also stipulated in the e-mail that employees wanting to play with another team would have to inform him first and submit a schedule for approval.

And that was that. “No discussion of this matter will be given by me to any of you unless I bring it up,” Woody wrote. S