10-17-2013

matt's team played john glenn today

matt went down on this play, and had dirt kicked into his face

 we weren't quite sure what was wrong at first, but once he was able to just flush his eyes out with water, he was good to go.
WHEW.  what a relief.
scary being on the sidelines for that...

 taking the guy down...

now when i got to the game (about 15 min late) we had already scored (and so had they) and we were up 6-8.
woo-hoo!
they scored once more, and so did we, for a score of 13-14.

however...
the game was quite physical the whole time.
lots of shoving after the end of the play; apparently some low blows by the other team as well.
chop blocking matt, i guess -- but he dealt with it appropriately.

finally, somewhere around the 3rd quarter (it's hard to tell exactly, because there was no clock or board to go by) our #23 (michael, a sophomore) had pushed off a kid from the other team (all as part of the last play) but he didn't like it and got up and knocked michael to the ground.  #23's older brother (a varsity player) and a couple other varsity players were at our game, watching.  he ran onto the field and tried to get the other guy off his brother.  before i knew it, everyone from the other side rushed over to our side.  this whole thing started maybe 20 feet from me.  it was on our side of the field.  it was really scary.
maedo's dad (a slight-ish asian man) jumped in to pull a kid off another, the varsity players all ran on, i saw one of them (who's my student) and i yelled, "kevin, noooooo!"
otherwise i was mostly in shock.  even though i had my camera in my hand, my first instinct is not to take pictures.  i actually decided i would not.  i'll never make it as a reporter/photographer, that's for sure.
i couldn't see matthew.  i had no idea where he was.  i thought he was clear on the opposite side (which he should've been, considering it was a defensive play (i think).
at one point i saw one of ours on the ground.  #6__ (i couldn't make out te 2nd #).  but i noticed he was big and asian, but no arm guards.  whew.  not matthew.  he was getting whaled on.
i also saw #3 of ours getting pounded on too. he looked awful after.  some kids lost their helmets in the whole thing.  again, it was scary.
all leila and i could do was yell, 'stop it!' we were freaked.  i asked if she could see her son, because i couldn't see mine!
i finally found matthew.  he was sitting on the bench.  sobbing and crying.  oh no!
his dad had found him (thank goodness - i hadn't even considered the fact he was there, but i'm glad.  i was worried about matt). lots of our kids and parents were asking matt if he was ok.  because he was a wreck.
but no, thank god.
matthew was completely overwhelmed with emotion (probably because he'd never witnessed, nor could he imagine, i'm sure) anything like this could ever happen.  i believe he had run off the field as soon as the fighting began.  he's actually quite good about staying out of trouble like that.
again, thank god.
eventually they separated.  the other school's admin/security was there, and they were told to go onto opposite ends of the field.  the game was called.  don't really know if the score will stand, but we were winning.
we tried to calm matt down...slowly he did.
we (as in my school) didn't have an admin present at this game.  i'm not sure why.  there's supposed to be...i actually was waiting for whomever it was supposed to be to come, but nothing.  i even commented to leila when she got to the game that i didn't see any admin.  little did i know that we would actually need them today.
i texted, then immediately called our (lame duck) principal to tell her.  she didn't know which admin was supposed to be there, and she asked if she should come to the game - i said, well, it's over now.  and i knew (with the construction traffic leading to this area) would more than triple the normal drive time.  she said thanks for calling...
coach anderson called rob adams, one of our co-athletic directors (and a fellow math teacher) to let him know...
leila eventually called 911 because she was concerned about the crowd of john glenn people on the way out to the parking lot.  they never came (they called her later, 50 min later) to say they had an accident and an assault to deal with first.  nice...NOT.
we waited a long while; the bus finally came for the boys, and then we headed out to the parking lot together.  it was bizarre.  there was still a group of people - some adults, some kids (players?  i think so...) that were hanging out by the area to the parking lot.  we could see a golf cart with two guys, most likely their campus security.  it was positioned between the group of people and the bus containing our players.  the bizarre part was watching that group of people try to make their way to our bus, and being turned away.  i heard their security guy say something like, "go back! don't come this way!"
WOW.  they weren't done yet?  we needed to get out of there.  this was norwalk.  who knows what could happen??
then we saw our varisty boys coming -- they must've walked over to the buses with our players.  but they drove here, so they needed to leave via the parking lot.  leila and i had to yell at them to NOT go over to that group of people, and to get out of here as soon as possible.

on my way home i stopped at mickey-d's to get some comfort food.  french fries were in order.  i got matt some chicken wraps and myself a burger and ate mine while waiting for him to emerge from the locker room.
he was OK.  but still a little shook up.

a guess as to the increased tension during the game?  the other team was winless going into the game.  so were we.  this was a perceived "equal" matchup, where either side could win.  i guess they were desperate and not playing good football, is what it was.  but to react and retaliate the way they did.  awful.

later that evening rob called me to get my side of the story, because since there was no admin there, i was the only non-coach/football staff person present.  oh my.
well, they apparently had a meeting friday morning at 7am.  i wasn't privy to any of that information, so i don't know what happened.  i'll maybe try to ask rob next week.