Threat mars East Bay high school football game, details of event now kept under wraps

SAN LEANDRO, Calif. (KTVU) - Friday usually means football for high school students but that won't be the case for San Leandro and McClymonds High Schools. 

Thursday afternoon, however, school officials canceled the game after a security concern. Authorities say there was some kind of threat made between two groups. 

But they didn't say what that threat was, only saying that police and the heads of both schools agreed to cancel the game that was set to be played at San Leandro High- out of "an abundance of caution."

It was a big letdown for some students like SLHS sophomore Jelah Jones Haley who said, "It's a kids football game. We're in high school. I feel like that was...messed up how they had to pick that place to do that, I don't know, and ruin everybody else's Friday."

The game was later reinstated but-administrators won't be releasing details about it when or where it will happen publicly.
 

McClymonds coach Michael Peters  told the East Bay Times he was mad about the initial cancelation-given the attention the games get from scouts and college coaches. 

Oakland Unified School District Spokesperson John Sasaki said, "In the three years that I've been here we haven't had any games canceled so we don't anticipate this happening again. I think that maybe there's some people in San Leandro who don't like some people in Oakland. Maybe there's some kind of disagreement there. So I think this is unique to this situation. We don't think-we don't expect this to happen again." 

In the meantime, Jelah says she's just disappointed she and her friends won't get to cheer on their team Friday evening, adding: "Everyone was all getting ready, saving their nice outfits for the game, working hard during the school day so their parents would let them go to the game. The players were really excited too. Because them against Mac. That was supposed to be a big game."