A 15-year-old freshman football player from Valparaiso High School in Indiana was seriously injured during an off-season drill last Monday when the back of his head struck the ground.  

The team was not supposed to be running full-contact drills, and no helmets were worn. 

The teen’s family is sounding the alarm because, in addition to his head injury, he is now getting threats for complaining about a lack of supervision by coaches.

“They lowered the boom on him. I know it’s a contact sport, but these practices that’s not supposed to be happening,” said Jason Solomon. 

His son, Malakai, got seriously injured at football practice when he was hit during practice at Valparaiso High School. Solomon said he was only aware that light contact drills were supposed be happening that day. 

 “Two kids, you know, really hit him hard, and he kind of went flying. There was no pads, no shoulder, you know, nothing, no helmet. and he braced his fall with his right wrist, and then, his head hit the ground, which is concrete with, with, like, a little bit of, padding,” Solomon said.

He claimed coaches let the practice get out of control, and the back of his son’s head took a massive blow. He even broke his wrist on the way down. Solomon said no one at the school contacted him after the injury.

“The concussion symptoms got worse, where he felt like he was literally gonna black out. and then from that point, he cannot remember the end of practice,” Solomon said.

He said Malakai couldn’t walk straight and was slurring words, but managed to text him, who rushed to the school and then rushed his son to the hospital, where they performed an emergency CT scan. 

“His eyesight, he keeps complaining of static, like um he starts to lose vision, he keeps saying like TV static, he’s having tons of brain fog, headaches,” Solomon said.  

He said not only did no one from the school call to check on his son, but said that Malakai started getting threats from kids from the school, and said he’s scared to go back.

The threats escalated, and the family had to call the police.

“Because the one kid said that if you come back to the school, everybody hates you and you’re gonna get messed up,” Solomon said.

Valparaiso High School said in a statement, “Player health and safety is paramount to what we do. We have strict protocols in place for whenever an injury is observed or reported, which include using onsite athletic trainers for initial assessment.”

The family has hired an attorney and is planning a lawsuit against the school.

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