The Manasquan football team knocked down a wall band in the TGiving Day game

MANASQUAN, NJ – For decades, the Wall V. Manasquan football game has been played on Thanksgiving Day. And every November there is an exciting final game of the season for teenagers and families in both cities.

Except this year, two Wall Township parents said they witnessed the Manasquan High School varsity football players “just running through” the Wall High School marching band in the middle of their pregame performance, possibly for the band to join in to end their performance early. and start the game.

“What I saw was essentially an attack,” said Brian Harris, 49, father of a 14-year-old freshman in the Wall marching band. “I’ve seen teenage flag wavers get knocked over by high school football players. I know that at least two parents I spoke to at the scene said they had spoken to the police and wanted to make a report.”

Thanksgiving morning was miserable: Wet, cold rain — which sometimes fell in torrents — hit the entire state of New Jersey. But as was the case in many coastal towns yesterday, the football game would go on.

“The big game was in Manasquan this year and the away team (Wall in this case) always puts on a good performance on the field before the game,” Harris said. “It was raining heavily. It was raining so hard that we weren’t even sure if the Wall band would play. I was standing on the sidelines texting my son and saying, ‘Are you guys coming out?'”

At 10:51 a.m. the marching band took the field. They would play an 8 minute set; The game was scheduled to start promptly at 11 a.m. The rain actually started to let up.

Five minutes into the performance, Harris said he was watching Wall Twp. The players lined up on their side of the field. Then, Harris said, the Manasquan football players ran through their banner screaming and screaming and onto the field.

“They literally walked through our band kids while they were playing their instruments,” he said. “I literally saw with my own eyes how their players intentionally pushed band kids and pushed our kids to the ground. I saw teenage flag wavers being knocked over by football players. One child had bruises. And I know at least two parents.” The people interviewed on site said they had spoken to the police and wanted to file a report.

“They weren’t even finished, they were on their second song,” said Stephanie Kolber-Sorathia, a Wall Twp. Mother of a teenage girl who plays the flute in the band. “It was amazing.” My daughter told me that a child carrying a sousaphone hit his head on the back of the sousaphone because he was pushed from behind by a Manasquan football player. I heard that a saxophonist was so beaten up that he filed a police report for assault. My daughter came over and cried to me that the adults were yelling at her to get the F off the field. The parents shouted at them that they had to stop their performance.

She said she tried to pull out her phone to take a video of what was happening, but – “It all happened so quickly. Within a minute it was over.”

The band’s performance was actually interrupted so that the game could begin. Harris said he “personally saw someone from Manasquan come to our band director and say, ‘This has to stop.'” I saw him give the signal to our band director to cut his throat.

Harris said he never saw a coach or adult on the Manasquan side admonish the teens or tell them what they did was wrong.

“This was actively encouraged by the adults on the other side,” he said. “Manasquan had the attitude: This is our territory and we’re going to run them off the field because the game is about to start.”

“No one rounded up the Manasquan players and said, boys, what you just did was wrong,” Harris said. “All of these coaches who are supposed to teach our boys to be good young men have done the exact opposite. It was a public display of bullying.”

Neither the Manasquan or Wall football teams nor the two school districts have released public comment on Thursday morning’s events.

Patch emailed Manasquan Principal Robert Goodall, Athletic Director Donald Bramley and Mansquan Head Coach Jay Price to get their thoughts on the story, but none immediately got back to us.

Harris said he may file a complaint with the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA), which is charged with regulating college sports in New Jersey.

He said he wouldn’t drop the subject “until our band receives an apology.”

“I know I’m acting like a Karen here, but I don’t care because what happened is terrible,” he said. “People can be as angry with me as they want. The adults need to be held accountable.”