A New Jersey high school football team is forfeiting its next game after an on-field altercation left it with nearly two dozen players automatically disqualified — and the establishment sports press can't be bothered to ask what pushed these kids to the breaking point.
Buena Regional will forfeit its scheduled Saturday game against Woodbury after 24 automatic disqualifications stemming from an altercation that ended Friday's game between Buena and Lindenwold, the Press of Atlantic City confirmed. The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association, or NJSIAA, confirmed the disqualifications.
Here's what matters: 24 players ejected from one game is not a normal scuffle. That's a full-scale breakdown of order on the field. The Press of Atlantic City reported the bare facts — the forfeit, the disqualifications, the NJSIAA confirmation — but offered nothing on what sparked the altercation or whether the penalties fell equally on both sides. Lindenwold's upcoming home game against Middle Township has also been declared a forfeit.
Breitbart, meanwhile, wasn't covering this story at all. Its Friday night sports coverage went to a school bus overturning near Atlanta, injuring 25 people associated with Salem High School's football program. A serious story, but a different one entirely. No national outlet picked up the Buena Regional forfeit with any scrutiny.
So ordinary Americans are left with the standard playbook: report the forfeit, skip the context, and move on. No one asks whether the NJSIAA's automatic disqualification rule — which can sideline two dozen kids from a single incident — is being applied fairly or whether it punishes teams for defending themselves. No one asks what was said or done on that field to set off that many players at once.
The NJSIAA has not publicly detailed how the disqualifications were distributed between the two teams. The Press of Atlantic City did not report whether the altercation involved unequal discipline or whether one team bore the brunt of the ejections. Without that information, the public can't judge whether Buena Regional walked away because it was depleted or because it was wronged.
What's clear is that a community's Friday night turned into a forfeit and a black mark, and the only story anyone in the press wants to tell is that a fight happened. The question of why — and whether the punishment fits the crime — goes unasked.
Twenty-four kids don't get thrown out of a game for nothing. But nothing is exactly what the public knows about what started it.
