Attempt to piece together story of prep football players targeting an official with hit
Two Texas high school football players have been suspended for apparently targeting an official during the closing moments of game played Friday in Marble Falls, Texas.
A video appears to show one John Jay High School defender colliding with the official from the back during a play while the game action was occuring several yards away. After the official is on the turf, a second John Jay player lands on the official.
It’s an amazing, unbelievable story. And we’ll do our best to reconstruct it here.
In the closing minutes of Marble Falls’ 15-9 win over John Jay, two John Jay players were ejected from the game on separate plays.
Moments later, Marble Falls was attempting to run out the clock with about a minute to play when the aforementioned hit on the official occurred. Both players were ejected from the game, although there was originally some confusion of which players were involved in the contact with the official.
On Sunday, Northside Independent School District suspended the two players. District spokesman Pascual Gonzalez said the district would investigate the incident and what might have led up to it.
Then Gonzalez dropped the understatement of year.
“It is not the good sportsmanlike behavior that we teach students,” Gonzalez said.
Sportsmanlike? Who is this guy? Fezzik from the Princess Bride?
On Monday, Austin Football Officials Association secretary Wayne Elliott told ESPN the official involved in this incident was “very upset” and “wanting to press charges.”
“The first thing we want is that those two kids never play football again,” Austin told ESPN.
SB Nation reported that several players and students from John Jay tweeted that the hit came after racial slurs were used by the targeted official.
One of the two players involved in the attack of the official told SB Nation that he was “offended by the disrespect” of the official and alleged that racial slurs were used to describe both Hispanic and African-American players.
And then the father of one of the two suspended players told SB Nation that the video of the play is being “misconeived.”
“I have advised my son to let the school put out the reponse to that misconceived video,” the father told SB Nation. “Once that happens, I will be more than happy to share with you and to share my feelings about an unfortunate incident.”
The layers to the this story are fascinating. Stay tuned for more.
