The mother of Nevada, the 3 year old soccer standout whose family had police called on them at a youth game in Winter Park, Florida, says her son walked away from the field believing he did something wrong.
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Martasia Griffin spoke with Lauren LaRosa of The Breakfast Club and confirmed that police were called during her son’s i9 Sports game. Griffin says it all comes back to how good Nevada is.
“He’s been targeted throughout the season because of his talent even though it’s not my son’s fault that he plays really good,” Griffin said. “They used to send bigger kids over to like knock him over.”
Nevada is the youngest player on his team. He is 3, and his teammates are 4 and 5. His family has been posting his highlights online for months, and his goals and dribbling regularly go viral.
According to Griffin, things came to a head at this game when the coaches, league directors and several parents gathered in a circle on the sideline. One parent complained that none of the other kids had been able to play and threatened to pull out of the program. Griffin says the director did not stand up for her family and instead offered her a refund.
She refused to sit her son down. “I cannot explain to my three year old son that he cannot play today because he’s so good,” she said. “I continue to let him play. The police walked in.”
Griffin says the other parents argued that they paid for the league just like she did. Her response was that sitting Nevada out for the whole game meant her son was not getting to play either. “You’re trying to fault my kid for actually playing soccer. He’s three years old,” she said.
Early reports claimed the family was hit with a trespass notice and escorted off the field. Griffin says that is not what happened. “They said that they was called for a disturbance, but we didn’t get no trespassing. We didn’t get no nothing,” she told LaRosa. “The only thing we got was our money back.” She says officers did not walk them to their car but watched them walk to it to make sure they were leaving.
Winter Park police tell the same story. The department called it a civil matter, not a criminal one, and said no one was arrested, trespassed or forced to leave the park. Police records show a league official called officers to report a disturbance involving a player’s parents.
The part of the night that stuck with Griffin most was how her son took it. “My son was crying. He was like traumatized,” she said. “He thought that he did something bad, and he thought that me and his dad was in trouble.” She says Nevada never said it out loud, but she could tell what he was thinking: “Maybe I should have just not scored so many times. Maybe they would let me play.”
i9 Sports, the national youth sports company that runs the league, said it is aware of the concerns, takes them seriously and is working to understand what happened without speculating or sharing unverified information. LaRosa reported that i9 Sports also offered Nevada the chance to play more weeks in a different league. Griffin turned it down.
Nevada will not be off the field for long. His mother told HuffPost he started dribbling a soccer ball at 10 months old, trains with his father, Don, three hours a day, and will join former pro soccer player Eddie Johnson’s Orlando youth training program in January. Robert Griffin III also spoke out on social media, criticizing the decision to call police over a 3 year old.
On The Breakfast Club, the hosts were heated. The crew called out the parents for not wanting to teach their kids how to compete, saying they would rather teach them how to complain and are “raising a generation of haters.”
The hosts also said Griffin did everything right by letting her son play up against older kids, and they had a message for Nevada himself: never question your ability, and never apologize for being better than somebody. They said the community should show up to support Nevada at his games, and that he should be allowed to score as many goals as he wants.
LaRosa said she and Griffin also discussed whether race played a role in how her son was treated. That conversation airs in full on her podcast, The Latest with Lauren LaRosa.
