Victor Valley High School’s varsity football team and coaching staff were suspended from all football activities for one week on Sunday, a penalty that immediately forced the program to forfeit its next game. The discipline came after Victor Valley beat Apple Valley High School 20-7 in the Bell Game on Friday, Sept. 11, then crossed a line in the moments after the final whistle.
Victor Valley Union High School District Superintendent Carl J. Coles said the program’s conduct toward Apple Valley fans included offensive gestures and language. The punishment applied to the varsity team and coaches, not the lower-level teams, and it turned a postgame celebration into a missed opportunity on the schedule. Victor Valley was set to forfeit against Brea Olinda High School, dropping its record to 3-2.
That is what makes the move land hard: Victor Valley won the rivalry game on the field, but the result did not spare the program from discipline. Coles posted the statement to Facebook and apologized to Apple Valley High School, saying the incident did not reflect Victor Valley. He framed the response as a line between passionate competition and unacceptable conduct, adding that high school athletics are about more than winning and losing.
The Bell Game is the kind of rivalry that carries extra emotion, and Coles said the district will use the next week to review the code of conduct with coaches and players. The suspension leaves the varsity program idle while lower-level teams continue, a split that shows the district wanted the penalty to hit the group responsible without shutting down the whole football operation. What Victor Valley loses now is not just one game, but the chance to carry momentum from Friday into the next week.
Victor Valley is scheduled to return at home against Lancaster High School on September 25, assuming the suspension ends as planned. Until then, the message from the district is blunt: the Bell Game win counts, but so does the behavior that followed it.
