Earlier this year, Georgia Tech football players Step Durham and Lance Austin were involved in a fight. That fight went unpublicized at the time, and it doesn’t appear as though either player missed any playing time as a result of the incident. But early Tuesday morning, TMZ Sports published a short clip of the fight, and after seeing it, it’s pretty amazing that GT was able to keep the fight under wraps for this long, given the brutal nature of it.
As you can see in the video above, the fight didn’t last long. But prior to the start of spring practice, Durham and Austin were in the GT training facility when, for some unknown reason, they were involved in an altercation. Austin walked towards Durham without a shirt on as the two argued, and Durham responded by punching Austin in the chin with his right hand. Austin fell to the ground immediately and appeared to be unconscious for several seconds before Durham grabbed him by the arms and attempted to pull him up. The video ends at that point, but it doesn’t look like Austin was able to make his way back to his feet right away.
TMZ Sports spoke with a GT official who revealed that Yellow Jackets coaches were told about the fight shortly after it happened. The GT official also said, "Discipline was handled internally," without providing any additional details about what that discipline entailed. But as we mentioned, neither player was forced to miss playing time during the 2017 college football season.
The fact that two teammates were involved in a fight shouldn’t come as a total shock to sports fans. Earlier this NBA season, Bulls player Nikola Mirotic had to be hospitalized after his teammate Bobby Portis punched him in the face. But it’s crazy that GT kept all of this quiet for so long, especially when you consider that there was video of the incident. You can see it for yourself at the top, though we should warn you that it’s a pretty graphic scene.
