A Michigan high school football player publicly denounced his teammate’s “horrible decision” to leap onto an opponent — fracturing the student’s spine — and revealed that his school and coaches are being bombarded with racially charged threats.
Rhys Biske, 15, clarified Thursday that he would not defend his Kalamazoo Central High School teammate’s “illegal move” during their game against Lakeshore on Sept 19.
“The decision my teammate made and what he did to the Lakeshore player was not alright,” Biske said in a video posted on his mother’s TikTok. “It was an illegal move and had no place. I’m not going to try to defend that. It was a horrible decision.”
Biske admitted the “move was intentional,” but shared that his teammate had no malicious intent to break the opposing player’s spine and was doing it to “celebrate to be funny.”
“After the play, he came to me on the sideline, he said he wanted to apologize, he felt bad for the kid, but the Lakeshore student had already been carted off the field,” Biske said.
Viral footage taken by fans in the stands shows a Kalamazoo player tackling the much smaller 15-year-old Lakeshore player to the ground.
Then, the hulking player climbs off his opponent and launches his full body weight back on the curled-up teen — pancaking him.
The 15-year-old was carted off the field and rushed to the hospital, where doctors found he had two fractures in his spine.
The injured player’s mother, Courtney Mims, told WSBT that her son won’t return for the rest of the season, and doctors are still evaluating whether he could play again.
Biske said that the players, coaches, referees, and most fans didn’t see his teammate leap onto the Lakeshore player because the incident occurred in the back field during a scoring play.
He claimed that Kalamazoo Central coaches and school staffers received racial threats online and through phone calls following the incident.
“They’re getting a lot of threats and comments on videos or saying a lot of things about jail time for my teammate and firing the coaches,” he said.
Biske’s mother, Sandra, told WWMT that during a parent meeting at the school on Wednesday night, administrators informed them of the “horrible racial slurs” being called into the school.
The Kalamazoo Township Police Department said they are investigating the threats being made against the school and those involved.
Kalamazoo Central High School stated Tuesday that it has taken “strong and decisive action” against the junior varsity athletes who jumped on the Lakeshore player, but “due to student privacy laws, we cannot disclose the specific accountability actions.”
The Michigan High School Athletic Association also released a statement that it is taking the matter “very seriously.”
Lakeshore Schools Superintendent Greg Eding wrote a letter to the community that the Kalamazoo player’s actions were “totally unacceptable and has no place in student athletics.”
“The superintendent of Kalamazoo Public Schools has apologized for the incident and applied serious disciplinary consequences to their student athlete consistent with its student policies and code of conduct,” Eding wrote in the letter, according to WWMT.