H.S. football coach is fired after holding a baptism for players after practice

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 259 points –
H.S. football coach is fired after holding a baptism for players after practice
nbcnews.com

A Georgia high school football coach who was criticized for holding a baptism on school grounds for some of his players has been fired weeks later.

Superintendent Kristen Waters said this week that the coach was dismissed from coaching Tattnall County High School for reasons unrelated to the baptism, but for an incident after a Nov. 3 game. She did not provide further details.

"The safety and security of our students is paramount to Tattnall County Board of Education," Waters said in a statement to NBC affiliate WSAV of Savannah. "Based on the outcome of an investigation into an incident that occurred Friday night, November 3rd while traveling after the football game, the District decided that it would seek a Head football coach that aligned with the best interests of the students."

36

You are viewing a single comment

So… technically true: he was fired after doing the baptism thing. But pretty misleading since apparently he was fired over an undescribed “incident”.

My guess is that they probably didn’t want to fire him explicitly for the baptism because of the recent Supreme Court decision that allowed a high school football coach to pray on the field: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/football-coach-fired-praying-field-backed-supreme-court-resigns-rcna103789

To be clear, he wasn't "praying on the field". He was leading the whole team in prayer as part of the school event, at the 50 yard line, with the audience watching, inviting others to participate, apparently creating an atmosphere of pressure to participate, etc.. He was using his role as a coach and as faculty of the school to formally endorse and encourage his particular religion as part of the identity of the team.

And the stupid fucks at the SCOTUS thought this was not an establishment violation based on lies. Kavanaugh literally repeatedly lied in his opinion on it, claiming repeatedly that it was a private prayer instead of a giant, intentional public spectacle.

Anyone who looks at the photos of clips of the prayer will have ZERO illusion that this was a small private prayer on the field. It was a megachurch-inspired moment.

And then the coach quit after being reinstated because his mission was accomplished and he didn't actually give a shit about coaching football.

Correct me if I'm misremembering, but wasn't this also the case where he was supposed to have standing because he was fired, but it turned out that he wasn't fired?

Like he failed to do something that was required to renew his contract, and so he basically quit the first time, as well.

So he had no standing to file the lawsuit, and therefore, SCOTUS shouldn't have taken the case.

Part of what I remember is that the coaching job was in Washington, and he sued for the job after moving to Florida. Then, when asked, he said he'd be ready to start coaching in Washington again with like 3 days notice of reinstatement. He won his case, but did not move back up or try to retake his old job in any way. Makes the standing in the case look real funny.

he had no standing to file the lawsuit, and therefore, SCOTUS shouldn’t have taken the case.

haha the rapists, handmaidens, and millionaire dick riders in SCOTUS don't give a fuck about laws

Oh sweet Lemon Test. What have they done to you?

A witchfinder in 1674 wrote that lemons are icky so Alito cast the deciding vote to eliminate it.

I've worked closely with school administrators. That's exactly what this is. It's actually good reporting since everyone knows it was the baptism, but the reporter still quotes the statement from the superintendent.

That’s total conjecture on your part. I also went to a high school once so that’s not what happened, he actually assaulted a student and they don’t wanna release the info. I’m making the up and it has the same validity as your statement.

Tbh, I've worked with plenty of problematic people and where there's smoke, there's fire. There's probably a multitude of other issues that they were already aware of or uncovered when they started paying more attention.

This is also pure conjecture. But I would be surprised if there weren't more obviously fireable offenses.

I feel 100% confident in my statement, and I do not regret making it nor do I intend to amend it in any way. Now go eat some tendies.

Only an idiot would feel 100% about a theory they made up without evidence to support it.

Yeah, that occurred to me too. They might have wanted to fire him for the inappropriate baptism nonsense, but didn't want to make it about a religious issue and so came up with some other reason. Or who knows, if he's stupid enough to do the baptism shit he's probably a fucking weirdo and does other things that are bad ideas.

He also wasn't fired, just removed as coach. He keeps his teaching job and gets to act like a martyr now

4 more...