Ninety seconds. That’s what a referee gave a 16-year-old wrestler in December 2018: cut your locs right here, in front of everybody, or forfeit the match you’ve trained for.
His name is Andrew Johnson, a junior at Buena Regional High School in New Jersey. On December 19, 2018, Johnson was set to wrestle his 120-pound match against Oakcrest. He had a cover for his dreadlocks, as wrestlers routinely wear. Referee Alan Maloney ruled he could not compete with the cover as it was — and gave him the ultimatum: the hair goes, or the match does.
The haircut nobody should have had to watch
A team trainer stepped in with scissors and cut Johnson’s locs off at the side of the mat, while cameras rolled and the gym watched. The video went everywhere — millions of people watching a teenager hold himself together while his hair fell to the floor so he could be allowed to play his sport.
Then Johnson did the thing that turned a humiliation into a legend: he went out and won. Not in regulation — in sudden-victory overtime, the hardest way a wrestling match can be won, minutes after having his locs cut off in public. The haircut was supposed to diminish him. The scoreboard declined to cooperate.
What happened to the referee
The state of New Jersey did not shrug. The Division on Civil Rights opened an investigation, and on September 18, 2019, Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal announced the outcome: referee Alan Maloney was suspended for two full seasons — 2019–20 and 2020–21 — including preseason, postseason, and tournaments. The state athletic association, the NJSIAA, agreed to mandatory implicit-bias training for officials, and New Jersey issued formal Guidance on Race Discrimination on the Basis of Hairstyle, making clear in writing what should never have needed saying. Maloney’s later defamation lawsuit over the episode was dismissed.
Let that timeline sit for a second. A rulebook hair call in a high school gym produced a civil-rights investigation, a two-season suspension, bias training for an entire officials’ association, and statewide guidance on hairstyle discrimination. That’s how far outside the lines that 90-second ultimatum was.
Why this one lives on a natural hair page
Because every parent here knows the two videos in this story: the one with the scissors, and the one with the raised hand at the end. Andrew Johnson couldn’t save his locs that night. He saved everything else — his match, his dignity, and, through what his case forced the state to write down, a measure of protection for every kid who comes after him wearing theirs.
Join the conversation
Be honest: at 16, given 90 seconds and that choice, what would YOU have done — walked away, or cut it and wrestled? And should any official ever again have the power to make that call? Tell us below.
Source note: Andrew Johnson’s December 19, 2018 match for Buena Regional High School — referee Alan Maloney’s ruling on the dreadlock cover, the 90-second cut-or-forfeit ultimatum, the mat-side haircut by a trainer, and Johnson’s sudden-victory overtime win — are from Associated Press reporting (via Sports Illustrated and WFPG) and NPR. The outcome — Maloney’s suspension for the 2019–20 and 2020–21 seasons, the NJSIAA’s mandatory implicit-bias training, and the state’s Guidance on Race Discrimination on the Basis of Hairstyle — is from the September 18, 2019 announcement by New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal and the Division on Civil Rights, reported by ESPN; Maloney’s subsequent defamation lawsuit was dismissed.
