On Sunday, September 3, 2023, the Danville T-Railers Youth Football & Cheer Organization hosted the Williamsport Millionaires Youth Football Program during a regular season game through the Heartland League.

Both Programs host football and cheer programs for children grades Kindergarten through 6th grade, however these particular games were for the Tackle participants, grades 3rd through 6th grade.

Unfortunately, there were behaviors exhibited by our opponents and their fans that we (T-Railers) as a program, as well as the Heartland League, do not tolerate. This behavior and their actions that followed resulted in ejections of a player, coach, and several fans.

During our A Varsity game (5th & 6th grades), a Williamsport Player, along with their Coach, were removed from the game for making racial slurs and incredibly degrading comments to the Danville T-Railer players. We had several players in tears throughout the game because of the mental and verbal abuse they received on the field.

Later on, during the B JV game, there was a fan who was observing the game from the 'crow's nest' beside the press box. After Danville scored a touchdown, he began to yell, very loudly, that it wasn't a touchdown and it doesn't count, then proceeded to make a vulgar remark about the Danville players on the field. At that time, the fan was asked to leave by three of the Danville T-Railer board members. He began to argue, became even more loud and vulgar, and refused to leave. The decision was made to call the police for assistance to extinguish the situation. Two additional Williamsport fans became confrontational with the three Danville board members, refusing to leave and further escalated the situation. The three fans finally exited the stadium before the police arrived.

This situation caused panic and chaos amongst families who were trying to watch their children play in their game.

In addition to the two major incidents of ejection from the game and stadium, the Danville T-Railers were also left with a major cleanup effort that was the result of total lack of respect and consideration from the Williamsport Millionaires fans. If the T-Railers had not completed this clean up prior to leaving the stadium, they would have risked losing their opportunity to use Ironman Stadium (High School Stadium) and their home field for future games.

It is truly unfortunate that the actions of a few, ultimately affect many. While the last thing we want to see is children not be able to play in a sport that they love and enjoy, it is not fair for our children, our Danville T-Railers as well as other teams within the Heartland League, and their families, to be subjected to this kind of behavior and utter disrespect from other teams within our league.

It is also unfortunate that this has become a pattern of behavior from this team (Williamsport) and we can only foresee issues like this again, if we are to meet in post season play or future schedules.

We are utilizing this petition to ask for the removal of the Williamsport Millionaires from the Heartland League, effective immediately.

We feel that it is truly unfair to hold all other teams within the Heartland League to a different standard code of conduct for players, coaches, and fans, while this type of blatant disregard and unsportsmanlike conduct is happening.

To reference the Heartland League Code of Conduct, please click here: https://dt5602vnjxv0c.cloudfront.net/portals/27753/docs/hyfl%20code%20of%20conduct.pdf

*The Code of Conduct pertains to Board Members, Coaches, Players, and Families*

Thank you for your time and consideration.