A junior varsity high school football player at Kalamazoo Central in Michigan offered a new perspective about the disturbing incident that took place last week. He wants to clear his coaches from wrongdoing.
They did not intentionally encourage violence prior to the game.
This young man chose to speak out after he and his high school football teammates stopped to pray over their injured opponent. Their powerful gesture was met with a lot of negativity on social media as part of a larger, hostile discussion involving race.
A high school football player in Michigan has been punished.
A junior varsity football player at Kalamazoo Central High School has been punished by the school and the state for his actions last Thursday. The large offensive lineman belly-flopped on top of an opponent, which fractured his spine in two places.
Kalamazoo Central was quick to act on the incident. It is unable to disclose the specific punishment(s) due to student privacy laws but he has been held accountable for his actions.
The Michigan High School Athletic Association issued the following statement:
“Kalamazoo Central has taken this matter very seriously and they have taken strong and decisive action. Due to student privacy laws, we cannot disclose the specific accountability actions, but they have exceeded what MHSAA regulations would otherwise require in cases of dangerous and unsportsmanlike behavior.”
Neither the school, nor the district, nor the MHSAA issued any kind of reprimand for the coaches, even though they seemed to encourage violence with a very specific song choice on TikTok prior to the game. The video has since been deleted in wake of what happened.
A separate TikTok video shows three Kalamazoo Central players join together in prayer as the injured player received medial treatment on the field. It is pretty powerful.
One of those three players, Rhys Biske, chose to speak out about what happened— both in that moment and the subsequent discourse on social media. He is calling for perspective and grace.
Kalamazoo Central coaches are not to blame.
Biske, 15, used his mother’s platform on TikTok to post a response video to the “MANY disturbing chains of events that have happened since Colton was injured by his teammate.” His mom says “these students are getting death threats and that’s not okay. It’s really horrific. And it is racially charged violence when their school is being harassed with race based slurs.”
She calls for discretion when making hateful comments about children/teenagers.
Biske offered a similar perspective. He is not going to defend his teammate’s “horrible decision.” With that being said, he does not believe one terrible mistake should define who his teammate is as a person.
Although the move was intentional, it was supposed to be funny. The player did not have malicious intent to break the opposing player’s spine and felt remorse instantly.
“After the play, he came to me on the sideline, he said he wanted to apologize, he felt bad for the kid, but the Lakeshore student had already been carted off the field,” Biske said.
Biske wants to be clear that one unfortunate play does not define other players on the team, the coaches or the school itself. He also says coaching staff did not mean to encourage violence with its video. They made a profound impact on his life. They do not deserve to be fired.
The corresponding backlash has reached unacceptable levels of hatred.
Rhys Biske and his mom are asking for people to think about their words, reminding them that these kids can see everything posted on the internet. Racial slurs are unacceptable. A little grace goes a long way.