Photo Credits: wix.com
Fights as a football player is everyones dream until it actually happens, as one of the De Anza football players is found pacing in the locker room before practice.
Anthony Colliani, 21, a business major, has five classes on top of playing football at the school. He said that he is exhausted from practice and all of his classes.
Colliani has been overwhelmed because in De Anza’s last home football game there was a brawl that broke out between the two teams post handshake. There has been plenty of controversy whether or not the team should be suspended for the entire year because of the incident that occured between the two teams.
Colliani said that he deals with this controversy by just sleeping it off in a private space so no one bothers him.
Demetrius Ferguson, 20, a communication major, said he was tired and in pain from being hit in the head with the others team helmet.
Chabot College football team initiated a fight after words were said while De Anza football team were lining up to shake their hands.
“It is hard to concentrate on everything that is going on when I have staples in my head from the fight,” he said. He spends a lot of time in the training room while he is recovering from this injury that easily could of turned fatal.
Tony Santos, head football coach for De Anza College, said he is overwhelmed with everything occurring as far as meetings with the board, and not knowing if the team will be able to play the next game.
“The players were put in the wrong situation at the wrong time, and this needs to be resolved,” he said. But he thinks that if his players get punished then the board is in the wrong because De Anza did not throw any helmets at the other team like Chabot did.
Larry Atkins, 19, engineer major, said that he deals with the stress by doing other activities.
“It really helps when I relax and play video games when I am at home so I do not think of the innocent that happened,” he said, a week after the innocent occured.
Chris Ranson, 23, a business major, was found in the cafeteria with his headphones on eliminating contact with anyone because he felt embarrassed.
It is honestly embarrassing what happened last Saturday because now we football players have a bad reputation on campus, more than we did before the innocent occurred.
Rayshon Mills, 22, a communication major, said that he felt threatened after the game because the players found his social media and were sending him messages.
“I was one of the players hit in the head with a helmet, and the Chabot players found my Instagram where they were messaging me threats if I told the board what number hit me in my head,” he said.
De Anza football team is a very high risk that if this event occurs again the football team will be removed with no questions asked and the Dons will have no football team.
Colliani said that he is exhausted from all this, and never wants it to happen again.
“De Anza would not be the same without the football brotherhood,” he said. “We have to not get in any fights even if the other team starts it. We have to be the bigger person in this case scenario.”