Injuries, Hijinks Mar Moraga Football Camp

A football camp at St. Mary's College in Moraga ended badly for several high school-age players and particularly so for one young man who suffered severe fractures to both arms, wrists and legs while trying to shinny out a fourth-floor dorm window last week.

Ryan McNeely, an upcoming sophomore at California High School in San Ramon, is undergoing surgery today to repair "extensive" damage to his extremities after a late-night fall at Augustine Hall Thursday night.  Those parents who are talking of the incident - and other injuries suffered by kids attending the camp - say McNeely was using a cable television wire to climb down from the fourth floor of dormitory to the third floor when he fell.

Moraga-Orinda Fire District Battalion Chief Darrell Lee told Lamorinda Patch that firefighters responded to three calls for medical assistance at St. Mary's during the four day camp - two of them on the first day, June 17.  He declined to discuss them specifically but parents have said that along with McNeely's injury, a player was treated for a head injury and another for a broken limb.

A mother who spoke with San Ramon Patch Editor Jennifer Wordsworth said McNeely was trying to help a group of boys who were out after curfew and returned to find themselves locked out of their rooms.

"(So) Ryan volunteered to try to get in through the window and let them in - even though it wasn't his room, or his own need," she told Wordsworth.

Attempts to reach the man running the camp, Eddie Ford, were not immediately successful.  The camp, scheduled to run June 17 to June 20, cost each player $200 to attend and was said to have representatives from several major colleges on hand.