The Slatest

Texas High School Players Avoid Expulsion as Assistant Coach Reportedly Ordered Hit on Ref

The two Texas high school football players who blindsided a ref during a game earlier this month received their punishment Wednesday for the hit heard round the Internet. The two students, aged 15 and 17, who were kicked off the football team and suspended from John Jay High School following the incident, were assigned to the school district’s alternative school for 75 days and eligible to return to their normal classes on Jan. 15, the players’ lawyer said. The school did not release any information on the punishment because of federal student privacy restrictions.

Complicating the whole unseemly affair are reports that the ref used racist language during the game and the players were instructed to hit the ref by an assistant coach. “In a signed statement detailing his interactions with the head coach after the game, John Jay High School principal Robert Harris says the team’s secondary coach, Mack Breed, admitted he ‘directed the students to make the referee pay for his racial comments and calls,’” ESPN reported on Wednesday. “According to a sideline source and the accounts provided to Outside the Lines of four John Jay players, Watts used the N-word twice during the game, once before and once after the infamous hits, and also used language offensive to Hispanics.”