What Took So Long?

A football coach is hospitalized after a post-game fight; apparently not newsworthy enough to report ASAP.

I’ll start with a disclaimer, as my publisher so heartily encouraged me to do earlier this week. Alright! Alright! What can I say, it was his birthday.

This article is in my opinion. Don’t know if that’s even needed, but it’s there, for what it’s worth.

Upon meeting with Warren County Schools Superintendent Carole Jean Carey about the altercation that took place on Friday night after the Warren County-Hancock Central football game, she understood this would be one of many conversations she would have with people like me this week. I just wondered why some had not already taken place.

A coach was hit in the face by an opposing player’s helmet.

We’ll instantaneously inquire and argue the correct month that Beyonce’s child was conceived, but not about a melee at a high school game where a human being got smashed in the face with a helmet? I thought we had a 24/7 news cycle. Who are we?

The damaging blow to Warren County Head Coach David Daniel’s head came after a fight had blossomed when Daniel saw a Hancock Central player strike a Warren County player from behind with a helmet, said Carey. Daniel rushed to break up the fight and extinguish the post-game fireworks when he was struck and eventually hospitalized over the weekend. Major reconstructive surgery took place with even more surgery on the horizon for Daniel, who is 6-1 in on his first season as head coach of Warren County.

But from what I’ve heard after digging around and looping through multiple source wormholes, this desired GBI investigation that Carey wants could be ripe with several issues other than just the situation involving Daniel. I feel disgusted saying “just” like it’s not enough. There was a certain number of police officers that were supposed to be assigned to the Homecoming/Rivalry game detail—I’ve heard as many as 12 from one source-- and upon altercation, lets just say this, many have a hard time coming up with a respectable number of officers initially trying to curb the altercation before it got out of control.

I’ve also been told that the officers that were present near the exiting teams certainly left their mark. We have reports of pepper spray being used to break up the fight. Several players received doses so potent they had to stammer out of the way in order to regain their functionality. Several non-participants—of the game and fight-- were near the action on the field and in close proximity to the gas as well. One attendee of the game said the smell from the gas was so strong, Warren County put their jerseys in the back of a pickup truck to haul back home. And players were also said to have felt threatened by more than just the spray tactics used by the officers.

It will take time to hash out all the different investigations as authorities try and get the full story as to what really happened last Friday night. But remember, all of this happened without a confirmed source through Saturday and into Sunday afternoon.

My question is how?