Oct. 22 was a great day for fans to come out and watch the C-SC Homecoming football game on Nov. 22. The stands were packed and the weather was beautiful, but the Wildcats were off to a slow start with Clarke University leading the whole first half, 17-21. Coming out after halftime Culver-Stockton kicked it up a gear getting a touchdown early in the third quarter which put Culver in the lead 24-21. The Wildcats dominated the second half, denying Clarke another touchdown for the rest of the game and grabbing the win over Clarke University 49-21.

Both teams were apparently still amped from the game which led to C-SC and Clarke storming the field. Both teams threw punches and violated the NAIA code of conduct. Athletic Director Patrick Atwell said, “it was very unfortunate” that the fight broke out after having such a great win, especially because it was the homecoming game. Atwell expresses “it’s a bad reflection on the college” and now instead of the main focus being homecoming and the successful win, the fight is at the center of attention.

Being Athletic Director, Atwell is always keeping a close eye on games for anything that could be a potential fight trigger, but this fight broke out fast and there were so many people participating that it was hard to diffuse the situation as quickly as they wanted to.

Multiple players were suspended across both teams. Atwell said, “between both schools, it [the number of suspensions] was in the double digits”. All suspensions happened quickly after the fight, and head coach Tom Sally was also suspended for one game and was not allowed to coach the William Penn game on Oct. 29. 

Remington Yates, a Senior majoring in major media communications, was working the homecoming game that day as a play-by-play announcer for the Wildcat Network. He had a front-row seat to the fight breaking out. According to Yates, the animosity between the teams started at the very beginning of the game when Clarke players decided to stand center field on Culver-Stockton’s logo right before the band performed.

The animosity between both teams only grew from there when one of our defenders took out the quarterback in what Yates describes as a “a nasty hit”. Yates mentioned that when he was wrapping up his report for the game he saw “one of our players going to shake hands as one of Clarke’s players shoved him”.

Allegedly, while this conflict was happening, both coaches were attempting to diffuse the situation, but then Sally fell down. Atwell held back one of Clarkes upset football coaches and once Atwell thought that coach was calm, he went to help Sally up. But according to Yates, the Clarke coach wasn’t done and ended up getting in a Sally’s face, putting his finger in Sally’s face and shouting at him. This appeared to trigger C-SC’s defensive coordinator James Bowman as he stepped in. The coaches then started shoving each other, setting off the players fighting again and throwing helmets. According to Yates, it was a  “bit of an unexpected turn of events to end the homecoming game”.