{"id":39419,"date":"2025-09-26T15:13:42","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T15:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=39419"},"modified":"2025-09-26T15:13:42","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T15:13:42","slug":"michigan-high-school-football-player-speaks-out-after-teammate-pancakes-opponent-fracturing-spine-during-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=39419","title":{"rendered":"Michigan high school football player speaks out after teammate pancakes opponent, fracturing spine during game"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Michigan high school football player publicly denounced his teammate\u2019s \u201chorrible decision\u201d to leap onto an opponent \u2014 fracturing the student\u2019s spine<\/a> \u2014 and revealed that his school and coaches are being bombarded with racially charged threats.<\/p>\n

Rhys Biske, 15, clarified Thursday that he would not defend his Kalamazoo Central High School teammate\u2019s \u201cillegal move\u201d during their game against Lakeshore on Sept 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision my teammate made and what he did to the Lakeshore player was not alright,\u201d Biske said in a video posted on his mother\u2019s TikTok<\/a>. \u201cIt was an illegal move and had no place. I\u2019m not going to try to defend that. It was a horrible decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

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@outheretrynasurvive<\/a>My son, Rhys asked me if he could post a response video to the MANY disturbing chains of events that have happened since Colton was injured by his teammate. (Not to mention ALL the students can see the harmful comments being made on my viral video of Rhys kneeling to pray for Colton). These students are getting unaliving threats & that\u2019s not okay. It\u2019s really horrific. And it is r@cially charged violence when their school is being harrassed with race based slurs. Rhys is 15. Please use discretion when making hateful comments about children\/teenagers. I\u2019m proud of my son & I support his message & stand by him. \ud83e\udef6\ud83c\udffd #thisisamerica<\/a> #kalamazoocentral<\/a> #footballpancake<\/a> #lakeshorehigh<\/a> #jvfootball<\/a><\/p>\n

\u266c Mysterious and Sad \u2013 Beats by Lucky<\/a><\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Biske admitted the \u201cmove was intentional,\u201d but shared that his teammate had no malicious intent to break the opposing player\u2019s spine in two places and was doing the stunt as a \u201ccelebration and to be funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cAfter 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,\u201d Biske said.<\/p>\n

Viral footage taken by fans in the stands shows a Kalamazoo player tackling the much smaller 15-year-old Lakeshore player to the ground.<\/p>\n

Then, the hulking player climbs off his opponent and launches his full body weight back on the curled-up teen \u2014 pancaking him.<\/p>\n

The 15-year-old was carted off the field and rushed to the hospital, where doctors found he had two fractures in his spine.<\/p>\n

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\"Rhys 3<\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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\"Viral 3<\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The injured player\u2019s mother, Courtney Mims, told\u00a0WSBT<\/a> that her son won\u2019t return for the rest of the season, and doctors are still evaluating whether he could play again.<\/p>\n

Biske said that the players, coaches, referees, and most fans didn\u2019t see his teammate leap onto the Lakeshore player because the incident occurred in the back field during a scoring play.<\/p>\n

He claimed that Kalamazoo Central coaches and school staffers received racial threats online and through phone calls following the incident.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019re 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Biske\u2019s mother, Sandra, told WWMT<\/a> that during a parent meeting at the school on Wednesday night, administrators informed them of the \u201chorrible racial slurs\u201d being called into the school.<\/p>\n

The Kalamazoo Township Police Department said they are investigating the threats being made against the school and those involved.<\/p>\n

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\"The 3<\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Kalamazoo Central High School stated Tuesday that it has taken \u201cstrong and decisive action<\/a>\u201d against the junior varsity athletes who jumped on the Lakeshore player, but \u201cdue to student privacy laws, we cannot disclose the specific accountability actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Michigan High School Athletic Association\u00a0also released a statement that it is taking the matter \u201cvery seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lakeshore Schools Superintendent Greg Eding wrote a letter to the community that the Kalamazoo player\u2019s actions were \u201ctotally unacceptable and has no place in student athletics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d Eding wrote in the letter, according to WWMT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Michigan high school football player publicly denounced his teammate\u2019s \u201chorrible decision\u201d to leap onto an opponent \u2014 fracturing the student\u2019s spine \u2014 and revealed that his school and coaches … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39421,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39419\/revisions\/39421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}