The Colorado State College Police Division and native authorities have appeared into threats — together with loss of life threats — towards Colorado State defensive again Henry Blackburn and his household, athletic director Joe Parker advised ESPN on Monday.
Blackburn, a senior from Boulder, delivered an unlawful hit on Colorado receiver/nook Travis Hunter within the first half of Saturday’s sport that left the two-way star with an undisclosed damage.
The threats towards Blackburn and his household started earlier than Colorado’s double-overtime victory ended, as cellphone numbers for each Blackburn and his mom had been printed on the Web. Blackburn’s campus deal with and his household’s residence deal with was additionally printed, Parker advised ESPN.
Parker mentioned college and native police have labored in live performance to research the threats towards each Blackburn and his household after they had been inundated with threatening telephone calls and textual content messages and had been targets of threatening social media posts.
“We’re very involved about our participant’s security, as Henry and his household have continued to obtain these threats,” Parker advised ESPN. “Henry by no means supposed to place anybody in hurt’s approach on the soccer subject. It is not what we train or coach. We hope that the irrational vitriol directed at Henry stops instantly.”
Blackburn’s late hit on Hunter went viral on social media Saturday evening and have become a serious speaking level. Hunter, one of many breakout stars of the 2023 season, briefly returned to the sport after the hit.
He did find yourself getting evaluated at an area hospital, and coach Deion Sanders mentioned following the sport that he’d be out for a number of weeks.
Colorado performs at No. 10 Oregon on Saturday after which hosts No. 5 USC on Sept. 30.
“It is simply unhappy,” Colorado State coach Jay Norvell mentioned Monday of the threats at his weekly information convention. “It is unhappy that that is the state of the world we stay in. It is a soccer sport. Let’s not make it greater than that. We do not need anyone to get harm. We do not coach that sort of soccer.”
Norvell mentioned he reviewed Blackburn’s hit on Hunter and described it as a “bang-bang play.”
“I reviewed the play,” Norvell mentioned Monday. “It is a play that occurs typically. That is actually not one thing that we train or coach. It occurs in soccer typically.”