SAN ANTONIO — In a state where football rules the sports world, where Friday night lights blaze over hundreds of high school stadiums at the start of every autumn weekend, the John Jay Mustangs have seldom been on center stage.
The San Antonio high school that bears the name of the nation’s first chief justice has not posted a record better than 4-6 in the last five years. But a violent hit by two players on an unsuspecting referee has again made bad behavior as much a part of a football game as kickoffs and extra points. It is also making people ponder whether there is a broader lesson about the dark side of high school sports here, or whether it was just an isolated incidence of terrible behavior.
At John Jay, the view tends to be the latter. Elsewhere, some observers are more critical.
The two players have been suspended from school for slamming into the referee, Robert Watts, at a Sept. 4 game in Marble Falls. An assistant coach who may have provoked the incident was also suspended, and the episode is under investigation by the University Interscholastic League, which governs extracurricular activities in Texas schools. Also under investigation are the players’ assertions that the referee used racial slurs, an allegation that the referee’s lawyer denies.
Video replays of the incident have been viewed more than nine million times on YouTube, drawing outrage from even casual sports viewers and stirring calls for harsh penalties, including criminal charges and suspension of John Jay’s football program, an option that, for the moment, seems unlikely.
“I had to play it back a couple of times just to believe what I saw,” said the Tarrant County sheriff, Dee Anderson, in Fort Worth, who has officiated high school and college games for more than three decades. “We all understand that you get hit out there, but this is so violent and so premeditated that I believe it deserves some very stern consequences.”
Verbal abuse and threats from coaches, players and fans toward game officials is not uncommon in the United States. But American sports are tame compared with the level of violence against game officials in other countries. Still, sports experts generally agree that the body slam against Mr. Watts crossed a line.
As captured on video, as a play began, one John Jay player made a beeline run at Mr. Watts, slamming into him from behind and knocking him down. A second player followed, appearing to dive into the referee’s back as he was on the ground. The players, who were suspended from the school and team participation, have not been publicly identified because they are minors and an investigation is pending.
School officials have said Mack Breed, an assistant coach on John Jay’s football team and a 2004 graduate of the school, allegedly made a suggestion that could have led to the incident. Administrators, who have suspended Mr. Breed pending an investigation, said the assistant had allegedly commented that “this guy needs to pay for cheating us” before his two players made the hit on Mr. Watts.
“I don’t know of other incidents like this, which is why it’s so shocking,” said H. G. Bissinger, the author of “Friday Night Lights,” which chronicled the Permian Panthers in Odessa, Tex. “I think it’s part and parcel of the intensity, the fanaticism and the craziness of what sports has become in this country.”
The incident resurrected memories of a 2008 playoff game in which a linebacker for Trinity High School in Euless, in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, ran over a referee on the second-to-last play of the game. The linebacker, Elikena Fieilo, who is now a Euless police officer, told The Fort Worth Star-Telegram last week that his intentional hit had resulted in disciplinary action and the loss of several Division I scholarship offers.
“It was a terrible, horrible decision I made,” Mr. Fieilo, who went on to become a scholarship player for Sam Houston State University, told the newspaper.
But athletic officials and other sports experts say they cannot remember any violent on-field display equal to the hits on Mr. Watts.
“There have been instances of inappropriate contact with an official — generally that’s been bumping into an official, never something to this degree,” said Jamey Harrison, the deputy director of the interscholastic league.
“Is it part of something larger? Of course it is,” said Mr. Bissinger, whose book spawned a movie and a television series. “It’s all about winning, it’s all about losing, it’s all about anger, it’s all about feeling cheated, and in the case of John Jay, now it’s about retribution, now it’s about revenge.
“It’s gotten to the point where kids, and apparently the assistant coach, they don’t yell at the ref anymore,” he added. “They take a page out of the schoolbook of soccer in Latin America and Europe and try to maim them.”
But the interscholastic league chairman, Mike Motheral of Lubbock, while condemning the attack, called it “an isolated incident” and noted that hundreds of other high school football games had taken place the same night without incident.
Texas Officials on Referee Hit
Officials with a San Antonio school district said on Wednesday that two football players said a referee directed racial slurs at them before they rammed into him during a high school game.
By ESPN, via ASSOCIATED PRESS on September 9, 2015. Photo by ESPN, via Associated Press. Watch in Times Video »
“I would hope we don’t jump to too many conclusions,” he said. “I’m not going to be too quick to jump out there and say what we’re seeing is an escalation in violence.”
His group took no action at a hearing last week, but is continuing its investigation and could make a decision at its next meeting, on Sept. 23. Superintendent Brian T. Woods of the Northside Independent School District, which includes John Jay, said that the “shameful” incident was being treated as an assault on a school official and that disciplinary options could include expulsion and assignment to a juvenile justice school.
Although The Dallas Morning News has editorialized in favor of firing the head coach and suspending the entire team for the rest of the season, athletic officials suggest that they believe that option would be too harsh and unfairly penalize non-offending football players, cheerleaders and fans.
Among the students, parents and faculty at John Jay, reactions were varied. Several students interviewed last week agreed that the two players had crossed a line, but some also expressed frustration that the racial slur allegations were being played down and asserted that John Jay was being unfairly painted with a broad brush for the actions of two players.
Kalvin Martinez, a 17-year-old senior, said he had known one of the two players since elementary school and described him as “a really good guy” who would not have taken that action unless provoked. “What he did wasn’t right, but at the same time, I don’t think he would do it just for no reason,” he said.
John Jay is the third-oldest of 15 high schools in the Northside district. Of the nearly 3,000 students, 84 percent are Hispanic, about 8 percent white and nearly 5 percent black, according to school district data.
Nearly 67 percent of the students are economically disadvantaged.
“Right behind that statistic,” Robert Harris, the school principal, said, “we have great students that come from great families and a great community.”
Inside John Jay, which sits on a busy thoroughfare near Lackland Air Force Base, a statue of a giant white mustang stands near the entrance, rearing up with a front hoof reaching skyward. Educators and students feel the incident has wrested attention from the school’s successes. John Jay serves as a science and engineering magnet school, and has been recognized by the state for academic distinction in math, science, social studies and English language arts.
John Jay also has one of the largest high school R.O.T.C. programs in the country, and its Silver Eagles armed drill team has won national competitions.
“We’re about the business of educating children and educating students, and that has to be our focus moving forward,” Mr. Harris said.
On Friday night, the Mustangs played for the first time since the controversial game. The players jogged onto the field holding hands, drawing a roar from the crowd of 3,139 fans at Gustafson Stadium.
Without on-field incidents, John Jay defeated Del Rio, 37-14.
“I think they sent a message of perseverance,” said Mr. Woods, the superintendent.
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