After learning of some unsettling information regarding students at Canon City HS (CO) last Monday, which included a large number of football players, Superintendent George Welsh made the unpopular decision to forfeit their game this past Saturday.
According to the school district and KOAA News, more than half of the school's football team is accused of taking sexually explicit photos of themselves and sharing them with each other, "like trading cards".
"Because we can't guarantee that every kid we put out on the field would be clean of this circumstance, we'd just rather not put a team out at all," Welsh noted.
The investigation has been turned over the Canon City Police Department, who are now focusing on determining if adults were involved, and if students were coerced in any way. The underage students involved could actually be charged with a felony.
Some parents are complaining that the punishment of the entire team, and greater community doesn't fit the actions of a few individuals, but Superintendent Welsh felt that "we had no other choice."