Hendry County Superintendent speaks on Clewiston High School football suspension

Author: Zach Oliveri
Published: Updated:
Clewiston High School opened its doors to evacuees looking to escape potential harm from Hurricane Dorian’s approach toward the east Coast of Florida Sunday, Sept.1, 2019.

A day after WINK News first brought you the news of the indefinite suspension of the Clewiston High School football team, Hendry County Superintendent Michael Swindle answered some of the big questions surrounding what happened and what’s next.

WINK News asked the superintendent what caused the benches-clearing brawl.

“What I’m being told from the coaches and players I spoke with is a very physical game between the two teams that were playing: Clewiston and Inlet Grove,” Swindle said. “They had asked the referees to help … please pay attention to the extracurricular roughness that was going on, and it just kept spinning up and emotions and just kept getting worse, and it ended up in the altercation, very unfortunately.”

He said it was an unfortunate incident they wish didn’t happen and are going to learn from it.

Swindle also said they are still waiting on word from the Florida High School Athletic Association about whether or not they can play the final two regular season games, starting with Friday’s game at Avon Park.

“When we receive those, then we will act accordingly,” Swindle said. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to. We want to finish the year strong. We want to bounce back from this as leaders in the school and on the athletic fields. We hope we get to finish the season playing football.”

He hopes they can get that word in the next 24-48 hours.

Swindle is not aware if the Inlet Grove team received any punishment. For the past two days, WINK News has made several attempts to speak with people with Inlet Grove Community School in Riviera Beach to answer that question. We have not heard back.

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