Kid makes what should be game winning touchdown with 6 minutes left in a Mass High School Superbowl game.
As he is heading for the end zone he lifts his arm in the air.
Gets flagged for excessive celebration- for lifting his arm in the air- on his birthday, costs all of those kids on that team what was rightfully fought for in all of those practices all year long because some over zealous ref screwed them.
If you watch the play what becomes 100 percent apparent is that there is nothing at all offensive about the players action. He was not taunting, he was not in the opponent’s face spiking the ball, he merely raised his arm over his head as he went into the end zone.
Are you fucking kidding me????? If the overzealous ref doesn’t call the penalty I guarantee the coach on the other team or their parents or anyone else in that stadium would have never even raised any objection over the play.
Way to suck the fun out of life. What’s next? You gonna flag them for fucking smiling if they catch the game winning touchdown in the goddamn Superbowl????
How in the world this ref can ever sleep at night after robbing this team and all of it’s players of a lifetime of memories as a Superbowl winning team I have no idea.
and to any of you people that can’t grasp how much this would mean to these young adults I feel sorry for you.
If the idea is about sportsmanship, the player that raised his arm in no way shape or form did ANYTHING UNSPORTSMANLIKE. So if the other coach had any balls he would hold a team meeting and explain to his players how they really lost the game because the other player made the play fair and square and they should go together on a bus with the trophy and deliver it to the team who was robbed of this victory.
That would teach the kids more about life and more about justice than any stupid rule which says that harmlessly celebrating by raising your arm as you make the game winning touchdown is somehow unsportsmanlike and worthy of stealing a game for.
It amounts to stealing really.
Watch the play and then tell me how crazy our society is becoming.
I’m completely disgusted. seriously- watch the play.
From The Boston Herald-
It should have been Matthew Owens’ proudest day — his 18th birthday, scoring the winning touchdown for his high school in the state’s Super Bowl.
But instead of taking home lifelong memories of triumph, the young man, his family and his team have been left heartbroken, struggling to understand how it all was snatched away from them Saturday by one ref with a flag.
Owens, the Cathedral High School quarterback whose controversial raised hand cost his team what would have been its first Super Bowl championship ever, wasn’t showboating and just had a “normal human reaction that all football players do” as he sprinted towards the end zone, his crestfallen father insisted yesterday. NFL players may routinely celebrate as they score, but in high school and college it is banned. The referee acted on a new Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association sportsmanship rule that bans any celebratory or taunting behavior by someone scoring a touchdown.
“He raised his hand because he knew was going to the pinnacle,” Kenneth Owens told the Herald, his voice seared with emotion and anger at times.
“There was nothing dishonorable about the play. There was no doubt it was a touchdown. He gets 20 yards in — and he’s not thinking about the rule — and he just raised his hand.”
Owens, a high school senior, lifted his left arm for two strides as he raced across the 20-yard line during the final minutes of the Division 4A game at Bentley University, in the final minutes of what had been an undefeated season. A jubilant Owens turned around in the end zone and saw the flag.
“He handed the ball to the referee. He didn’t spike it,” the elder Owens said.
But the play was nullified. Rival Blue Hills Regional Technical School ended up taking home the trophy with a 16-14 win.
Owens said his son has been playing football since he was 7, has never seen the inside of a police station and has a mother and father who have been in his life “since the very first day.”
Good Morning Gloucester 