High School Football Players Who Attacked Ref During Game Say Coach Told Them To Do It – blogged by @LoveRubyWoo

In case you haven’t been following the news, a couple of weeks ago, during a Friday night football game at John Jay High School in Texas, a referee was intentionally targeted by two John Jay players. In the middle of a play, one of the players blindsided him from behind and tackled him hard, then the second player dove into him helmet first once he was on the ground. The two players, Michael Moreno and Victor Rojas, were suspended indefinitely in the days following the incident and will most likely face assault charges. The referee, Robert Watts, who suffered injuries from the hit, is looking to take legal action. Here is a video clip of the hit, which has since gone viral.

Moreno and Rojas have alleged that on top of making poor calls in favor of the other team, Watts was also directing racial slurs at them and their teammates throughout the night. Watts and his attorney deny these accusations. Even more shockingly, the two players also claimed that John Jay assistant coach Mack Breed ordered them to do it after a series of bad calls, saying to them “that guy needs to pay for cheating us”.  Breed has been placed on paid administrative leave while the school and the police continue their investigation. 

This morning, on Good Morning America, Moreno and Rojas talked to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and told their side of the story. They went into detail about everything that happened that night, backing up their initial claims that Watts was making racist remarks. According to the two players, they overheard Watts tell one of their Hispanic teammates to “speak English, this is America”, while calling a black teammate the n-word. They also backed up their claims that Coach Breed told them to hit Watts as revenge for making unfair calls against their team. According to Moreno, Coach Breed pulled him aside late in the game and said, “You need to hit him, he needs to pay the price.” Moreno said that he felt his actions weren’t right, but when asked why he went along with it, he said,”You put your trust into this grown-up, this guardian, your coach, who’s been there for me. … I trust him. I did what I was told.” Moreno and Rojas added that they regret their actions and their lawyer chimed in, saying he feels they’ve been sufficiently punished already and don’t deserve to face any more consequences. You can watch the full interview here. 

There’s a lot of he said, she said going on here, but it seems to me that these two are placing the blame on everyone but themselves. I’m not necessarily saying that their claims are false, but they are doing a good job of playing innocent and acting like they aren’t old enough to tell right from wrong. I would love to hear the coach’s side of the story before I make any more judgments though. What do you think about this whole situation?