Texas high school football coach reportedly admits to telling players to blindside ref
From Outside the Lines:
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."
While Breed insists that Robert Watts - the referee - used racial slurs at his players, and this led him to give his players the instructions, Watts and his lawyers have vehemently denied the claim.
In that same statement, Harris explained that Breed admitted to Gary Gutierrez, the team's head coach, that he'd given the players explicit instructions after Gutierrez told him that the two players in question had been kicked off the team. This admission reportedly happened on the team bus back from Marble Falls, and when they returned, Gutierrez relayed the information to Harris in a face-to-face meeting in the high school's parking lot.
From the statement:
"[Gutierrez] stated that Coach Breed initially asked him what was going to happen to the players during their ride home from the game. After Coach Gutierrez informed him that the players would be removed from the team, he informed Coach Gutierrez that he directed the players to strike the referee."
The next day, Breed and Harris met in Harris' office, and Breed confirmed what Gutierrez told him. From Harris' written statement:
"Coach Breed told me that he directed the students to make the referee pay for his racial comments and calls. He wanted to take full responsibility for his actions. Mr. Breed at one point during our conversation stated that he should have handled the referee himself."
Last week, Michael Moreno and Victor Rojas, the two players suspended from school and possibly facing criminal charges, appeared on "Good Morning America" and said that their coach told them to hit the ref.
Here's the play:
Both Moreno and Rojas will appear in a private hearing on Wednesday that will determine whether they will be found guilty of violating the Student Code of Conduct. As ESPN notes, the two have already been assigned to alternate schools and are prohibited from watching John Jay games as spectators.
Breed will appear in a separate private hearing on Thursday with the University Interscholastic League, and the governing body of Texas high school athletics could sanction Breed and John Jay's football program.
We have reached out to Breed, Watts, and the school district for comment.