HISD investigating football coaches

HOUSTON At least three coaches are under investigation and face discipline after a student athlete was left sitting on a bench with a broken knee after the game. The injury happened in the first half.

"I heard like a pop, then I went down, then I tried to get up," 16-year-old Jesse Jones High School football player James Johnson said.

Johnson couldn't get back up during last Friday's game at Jesse Jones High School. Though he didn't know it at the time, his knee cap was broken.

The sophomore safety was helped to the sideline and to a bench. His knee was wrapped with an ice pack, where he sat through two quarters and then was left after the game, despite a coach promising to come back from the field house.

"'Cause he say he left his truck over there by the school, and he said he was coming around the field to pick me up, and then he didn't back," Johnson said.

So Johnson sat and sat. Fifteen minutes after the game was over, his father arrived. His son's injury was so obvious, they called his mother, Rhonda Davis.

"He said, 'Mom, I'm hurt and I'm hurt bad,' and he passed the phone to his father and he say, 'Rhonda, James' knee is turned sideways, turned backwards,' Davis said.

She rushed to the field.

Johnson was hospitalized, where X-rays revealed, his knee cap broke into two pieces.

Davis is frustrated over the fact that not only was Johnson left on the field after the game, but also that no ambulance was called immediately after his injury.

"When a player gets hurt to this magnitude, an ambulance is called to that field and that player, his parents is called," Davis said.

Since that never happened, Davis wants changes to how injuries are handled at Jesse Jones High School. She says it's the least the coaches can do to restore faith to parents.

"How can I trust you to leave my kid in your care, to play ball, and the minute he gets hurt, he's left?" she asked.

Johnson is out for the season. On Wednesday, he has an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon to see if his ACL is also torn.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Houston ISD say appropriate disciplinary action has taken place, but the mother is still waiting to find out exactly what changes will take place.