Intramural flag football match gets heated

A fight broke out Monday night between two flag football teams over one team’s insulting remarks to the other.

“We have two Ukrainian kids on our team,” said Freshman Ian Newton, who is studying Physical Education and plays on the offended team. “The other team was making fun of their accents. They were pretty upset about it.”

Not only did the team make fun of accents, they also teased a player for being short.

“They pushed some buttons of one of our players,” said Connor Malloy, a freshman studying biochemistry who plays on Newton’s team. “He’s a little bit shorter and I know they were calling him ‘midget.’”

Newton admitted that after the opposing team caught an interception near the end of the game, he lost his temper.

“I slide tackled one of the kids,” Newton said. “I thought I was going to get kicked out. They just called the game short.” If he had been kicked out of the game, he would also have had to miss his team’s next game.

Malloy added that the altercation was heated, but not out of hand.

“The other team came closing in on him and so our guys ran to his side,” he said. “And that’s what happened, like no punches or anything like that.”

Newton and Malloy’s team has a smaller roster than most of other teams they play against. A flag football game plays seven on seven, and they usually have seven or eight come to play. Most of the teams they play have 10 to 12.

“I feel like it was just one of the things where it was kind of heat of the moment,” Malloy said.

Teams play on weekday evenings. Newton and Malloy’s team try to practice each week, on Mondays. “I didn’t know the guys until we met, but they’re all good guys” Malloy said. “The only way I know any of them is from flag football.”

The season ends next Thursday.

-olivia.webb@aggiemail.usu.edu

Twitter: @OliviaWebb77