High School Football Coach That Told Players to Target Referee Resigns

John Jay High School assistant football coach Mack Breed has resigned.

Breed reportedly told his school principal that he directed two of his players to blindside an official during a Sept. 4 game out of anger that the official allegedly used racist language and made questionable calls, according to Outside the Lines.

Just a day before his resignation, the two players’ lawyer told them that they would be eligible to return to school for the spring semester after being suspended from school and the team and also being sentenced to 75 days in alternative school.

The two players, 15-year-old Victor Rojas and 17-year-old Michael Moreno, told “Good Morning America” and Outside the Lines that Breed took them aside on the sidelines and ordered them to hit referee Robert Watts.

The video of the players tackling Watts went viral on YouTube. It now has nearly 11 million views.

Breed’s attorney, James Reeves, said in a statement Thursday that all the blame shouldn’t be put on his client’s shoulders.

“Some people are unfairly blaming one man, Mack Breed, for everything that happened at that game,” Reeves said. “Mack Breed has spent three agonizing weeks contemplating his future since the fateful football game in which two players struck a referee. It has been a difficult road for Mack as he has stood silently watching the spectacle. He has replayed that game in his mind many times wondering how it all went wrong.”

The players’ attorney, Jesse Hernandez, fired back at Reeves with a statement of his own.

“We are shocked and disappointed by the press release Mack Breed and his attorney published today,” Hernandez’s statement begins. “In a desperate act of self-preservation Breed continues to reveal his character as he disgracefully attempts to throw a student under the bus for following the very directions Breed gave him. The record is clear that Mack Breed admitted to Coach Gutierrez and Principal Harris that he did in fact direct student-athletes to hit referee Watts. Breed later followed up his admission with a written statement to Principal Harris, confirming that he directed student-athletes to hit the referee.”

Now that it is proven that it is the coach’s fault and not the players, I would not be at all surprised if a lawsuit arises against him for basically instigating an assault. So, even though Breed has resigned, it seems as if this story won’t be going away anytime soon.