As teams take to the field for Friday night high school football tonight, the LHSAA issues a warning for players and coaches – be on your best behavior, or else.
Executive Director Eddie Bonine says if anyone gets out of hand, there will be consequences.
“There (are) fines that are assessed,” warns Bonine.” We try to stay away from fines, because I know where the money has to come from. It’s not about that. We’ve suspended athletes, we’ve suspended coaches, we have suspended schools from … being able to host an event for a game.
“We sure the heck don’t want to have an individual or individual school participants not being able to participate in the postseason because of incidents that could be avoidable,” Bonine continues.
Bonine’s warning comes after players from Comeaux and North Vermillion high schools got into a fight on the field following the conclusion of their game last week.
Both teams are forfeiting their games this week, and Bonine says that unfortunately comes with some collateral damage.
“From what I understand, one of those school’s opponent this week — it was their homecoming,” says Bonine, referring to Teurlings Catholic High School. “I don’t holler down the hall and say, ‘Hey, before I suspend these schools, is anybody playing homecoming?’”
Bonine says his same warning goes for the fans in the stands.
“When fan behavior results and spills out onto the court, spills out onto the floor, spills out onto the field, there are going to be ramifications as well,” says Bonine. “And, unfortunately, it’ll affect the participants when they maybe didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Bonine says on a positive note, the number of fights at sporting events has gone down the last two years.
“I will say that it’s less than we had a year ago, which I will say that last year’s was less than the year before,” Bonine says. “So we’re making tremendous progress.”
