Indiana High School Cancels Remainder of Football Season After Harassment Scandal and Mounting Injuries

Edinburgh High called off the rest of its 2025 season after racial harassment allegations and a shrinking roster left just a dozen healthy players — forcing school officials to put safety first

Edinburgh High has cancelled the remainder of its 2025 high school football season. / Robert Scheer/IndyStar via Imagn Content Services, LLC

As reported by Kyle Neddenriep of the Indy Star. The Edinburgh high school football team has cancelled the remainder of its 2025 season. Edinburgh superintendent Jim Halik stated that the team was down to just “12-14 healthy players” after starting the season with around 20 athletes.

“After careful consideration, due to a limited number of players, the remainder of the Edinburgh High School football season has been canceled,” Halik said in a message to IndyStar on Wednesday. “This decision was not made lightly. The safety of our student athletes continues to be our highest priority. It’s so hard to at a small school to have enough players for a team … the decision was strictly based on the safety of the players.”

Edinburgh will not play the final two regular season games  after already cancelling their homecoming game on September 19 when a formal harassment complaint was made to principal Kevin Rockey and Superintendent Halik by one of the players against two other players.

Edinburgh began its season with three straight losses, including a 60-0 drubbing by Riverton Parke. The Lancers, however, experience a bright spot on Sept. 12 with an 18-16 victory over Crimson Knights.

It's been all downhill from there.

According to an earlier report from the Star, the harassment complaint came from a black player on the team who feared for his safety because of racial slurs and death threats from some of his teammates.

The unidentified player told the Indy Star that he feared his teammates planned to "jump" him at practice.

The scandal led to the cancellation of the homecoming game. When Edinburgh returned to the field it suffered a 48-6 loss to Switzerland County and, in what would turn out to be its final game, a 71-0 manhandling by North Central. The Lancers were scheduled to visit North Decatur on Friday night and host Brown County next week.

In an interview with Fox 59 News in Indiana, Edinburgh principal Kevin Rockey insisted safety concerns related to injuries and a decreased roster size was the main reason for the cancellation of the remainder of the season.

“It’s been a long time in the making,” Rockey said to the news outlet on Wednesday. “Last Friday, we were away and we had probably two kids on the sideline that weren’t injured against teams that have 40 and 60 and lots and lots of players, kind of thing.”