Sports are dangerous – no one can deny that. For many of us, our first introduction to real, piercing pain came from a softball to the ribs, a jammed finger on hardwood, or a hard tackle with the pigskin.
And the potential for this pain is only acceptable in a sport that encourages sportsmanship – the unwritten rules of the sporting world that says you suspend your person-to-person grudges for the duration of the competition.
Without sportsmanship, there is no sport.
One young man in Texas has demonstrated whatever the opposite of sportsmanship is…and is being charged with assault for it.
The Edinburg High School football player who ran onto the field during a game to hit a referee Thursday night is now facing an assault charge.
Emmanuel Duron, 18, was charged with Class A assault around 11 a.m. Friday morning during an arraignment at the Edinburg Municipal Court.
A cash surety bond of $10,000 was set for the football player. According to jail records, he posted the bond later Friday through O. Castaneda Bail Bonds. He was released later in the evening, records show.
The incident in question occurred during a football game between Edinburg High and PSJA High at Richard R. Flores Stadium in Edinburg, where the referee, Fred Gracia, ejected Duron from the game on a play that drew flags for roughing the passer after the play was dead, and for exchanging words with the official.
What happened next was heinous.
The referee was tended to by onsite medics, and allowed to resume officiating the game.
