The Greensboro News & Record today reports on an incident that stopped Friday's Victory Christian at Oak Ridge Military Academy game.
Oak Ridge is a military school for boys and girls in grades 7-12, located in Oak Ridge, which is in Guilford County near Greensboro.
The game was stopped in the first quarter after emergency medical personnel took nearly an hour to attend to Victory Christian wide receiver and long snapper Jonathan Bridges, who suffered a blow to the head on a punt.
Victory Christian coach Frank Crockett told the Observer Tuesday morning that an Oak Ridge player, with a running start, speared Bridges, who was knocked unconscious on the play. When he came to, Crockett said, he complained he had lost feeling in his extremities.
Oak Ridge coach and athletics director Otis Yelverton told the Greensboro paper that he disagreed that the hit was a spear. He called it a "stinger."
"That's part of the game," Yelverton told the Greensboro paper.
Victory Christian coach Crockett said Bridges, a Division I recruit, is OK now. He was released from a Greensboro-area hospital Saturday.
Crockett also said he did not know that Oak Ridge had post-graduate players on its team before the Kings arrived.
Victory Christian, which started the season with 30 players, is down to 24 due to injury. Crockett said his team (0-6) has three seniors, two juniors and 25 freshmen and sophomores.
Oak Ridge (6-0) is a first-year team with several fifth-year players and nearly a dozen Division I-caliber athletes from around the country, the News & Record reported.
The newspaper also reported that the Hargrave Military Academy high school team (1-5), which was going to play Oak Ridge this week, canceled the game after learning about the post-graduate players.
Crockett told the Observer Tuesday that he didn't know about the fifth-year players until his team arrived for the game last week.
"We got up there and found out they were some grown men," Crockett said. "But it was their homecoming and we did it as a good faith gesture."
Crockett said his team wasn't scheduled to play Oak Ridge and he was surprised when Oak Ridge coach Yelverton called early last week requesting game film. Yelverton told the Greensboro paper that he had scheduled the game last summer, but declined to tell the paper who he had spoken with.
"I don't know how the game got made," Crockett said. "The guy called me last Monday and asked to exchange film. I told him I'd never heard of Oak Ridge. He said we scheduled a game back in July. I told him that couldn't be true because I had not heard anything about it, and we had an open date on that date anyway."Crockett said he forwarded Yelverton to school officials.
"They didn't know about it either," Crockett said. "But later, it was decided to play them."
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10 comments:
They must be the only team in the State that does not know what's happening at Oak Ridge as they tranform the private school into a Fork Union / Hargrave Football& Basketball powerhouse.
They have 12 Div-1 recruits and numerous Div-2 recruits. The 6-0 record includes forfeits, the works. I went to watch them play Durham Prep. The score was 22-0 in the first 4 min. all scored by the defense. They are unbelievably good. They are 5th year seniors and the best of the best HS players around. It was scary! just watching them on Kickoff & Punt returns. It was so violent the refs would not allow them to Kick any more after the 1st Quarter. The other team just accepted the ball on the 40yd line and went backwards. Sometimes their players would run 80yds and go out of bounds on the 5yd line trying not to run the score up. A powerhouse team like Hargrave who has 5 years players say "no thanks" we don't won't none of that was shocking to many people.
The "Coach" at ORMA is a piece of scum and entirely lacking of any sportsmanship whatsoever. Look at his comments regarding the score. Absolutely disgusting. Jack Tatum would be real proud of these clowns.
I have a son that plays for East Lincoln and we played them earlier this year.This team is very talented and just as dirty.It all starts with the coach and he aloud them to take cheap shots and run there mouth none stop,he is not much of a coach!!
The injured player should file assault with intent to injure charges against the other player. Even the pros don't try to take out the other team's long snapper.
What a classless guy that coach is.
that's scary that this happened friday. there's a hs player from east of I-95 that is now paralyzed because of a hit he received in the game friday - crushed c4 and broken c5 i think. tragic...
Otis Yelverton....that name seems familiar. Isn't he the guy whose players all mysteriously end up at Cal? Kinda strange, don't ya think? Greensboro all the way to Berkeley?
The school president should explain why ORMA did not field two teams, a varsity and post graduate. Post grads would be ineligible according to the NCISAA and might explain ORMA's decision to withdraw from that organization.
The Oak Ridge players have been upset with, and complained about the weak schedule. The most talented players were promised a "national" schedule.
Many players refuse to go all out against these weak teams for fear of injuring someone. Some players have accused the coach of scheduling weak teams just so he can run up the score. There may be something to the charge because he never pulls the starters until the last few minutes of the game no matter how big the blowout.
While I cannot speak to the other issues raised here I did attend the game and saw the play on which the injury occurred. From where I stood there was no helmet to helmet contact. The ORMA player, #30, struck the Victory Christian player with his shoulder pads. It appeared to be a normal football play. Evidently the officials thought it was a clean hit because no flag was thrown on the play.
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