Mother and Son Want Changes After H.S. Football Game Fight

"I didn’t know what to do I couldn’t breathe it was just crazy," says a 14-year-old Indio High School football player who was beaten during a Junior Varsity football game at Indio High against Desert Hot Springs High School on Friday. A video of the fight shows chaos everywhere. "It just got out of control I tried to help one of my teammates but I couldn’t," he says. In the video, you can see him getting knocked to the ground. "Two guys were stomping me one guy was in front of my face and that’s when the other guy came up to me too, I was unconscious," he says adding he finally saw a coach, "I thought he was going to help me which he didn’t he just came and hit me too … I was scared to death." His mom did not want them to be identified for fear of retaliation. She says she had only left minutes before the fight broke out when she got a call her son was hurt and raced back, "I saw everybody crying, I saw a lot of little girls crying saying my son’s name, I thought the worst." She says she took him to urgent care and while they don’t know the full extent of the injuries, her son suffered a concussion. And she says the game should have been stopped before the fight broke out. "This is the consequences for not stopping the game when they’re really, really rough." They both feel the age difference among players also played a role and changes should be made before something worse happens. "This is what a coach told me, a game is supposed to be fun, Friday it wasn’t fun for me I was scared." We reached out to both the Palm Springs Unified School District and Desert Sands Unified School District, they both sent us these statements: PSUSD: Following Friday evening’s unfortunate incident at the Junior Varsity game at Indio High School, Desert Hot Springs High administrators are reviewing video as well as gathering statements from all players. Per CIF regulations, all players that left to the sidelines to participate to the field during the incident are being ejected from the next athletic contest for which they were previously scheduled – the first game of the next athletic season they are a team member of. An individual conference with each involved player and his/her parent(s) is being scheduled, and a meeting with all involved players and their parents will be held early next week to discuss CIF rules and actions to be taken. It is estimated that a total of 20-22 players will be disciplined at this time pending further review of other video that could become available. DSUSD: Video is currently being reviewed and the instigating factors will be released after all available footage has been looked at. Video is, and will be, shared with Indio Police and Palm Springs Unified School District. Anyone in attendance at the game with video of the incident is asked to reach out to our security officers via workingtogether@desertsands.us