Coach Joe Kennedy, who coached the Bremerton, WA, High School football team, resigned after his first game following his win in the Supreme Court and his return to coaching
Kennedy lost his assistant football coaching position in 2015 after he refused to break the promise he made to God that he would take a knee in prayer at the 50-yard line after each football game. He had been doing so since first joining the Bremerton School District in 2008, however.
But in 2015 the district learned that Kennedy had been praying with students in the locker room and on the field. They told him to stop, so he quit praying with students. But he continued to kneel on the field, and the district fired him.
Kennedy refused to back down, however. Together with the First Liberty Institute, a legal non-profit that fights for religious liberty, he sued the school district. Kennedy’s case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and in a 6-3 ruling in 2022, they affirmed his right to take a knee in prayer. SCOTUS also ordered the Bremerton School District to reinstate him.
Screenshot: @FoxNews/X.
And after his first game last Friday, which resulted in a win for Bremerton High School, Coach Kennedy once again kneeled in prayer at the 50-yard line. The crowd cheered.
https://twitter.com/Virginia_Allen5/status/1697829181265166632?s=20
Yet on Wednesday, Kennedy submitted a letter of resignation to the Bremerton School District. No one saw that coming.
Why now? After a seven-year fight for religious liberty — why this?
David Brody of the Christian Broadcast Network interviewed Kennedy a few days before his resignation. Things just weren’t right, he told Brody. He felt like an outsider. Even during the victorious game on Friday, he spent a lot of time by himself on the sidelines. The school district and the grueling lawsuit had taken the joy he had from coaching.
JUST IN, BREAKING: Here is the statement from Joe Kennedy through his publicist regarding the fact that he has RESIGNED as assistant football coach at Bremerton High School.
Full context: when I interviewed Coach Kennedy in Bremerton Washington a few days ago, he told me he felt… pic.twitter.com/YnLZqlgzPg— David Brody (@DBrodyReports) September 6, 2023
In his resignation letter, Kennedy wrote:
It is apparent that the reinstatement ordered by the Supreme Court will not be fully followed after a series of actions meant to diminish my role and single me out in what I can only believe is retaliation by the school district.
He didn’t go into details as to specifics, although he told the Seattle Times that “I knew it wasn’t going to be a picnic and it wasn’t,” but his “role and responsibilities” at Friday’s game were “not what I signed up for.”
However, Hiram Sasser, executive general counsel at First Liberty Institute, said in a statement:
We have come to learn of serious allegations of retaliation against coach Kennedy by the Bremerton School District. They’ve done everything they can to make him feel unwelcome.
Sasser added that First Liberty is “going to investigate the situation to determine whether further legal action is necessary.”
But that’s not all. As a result of the arduous nature of the legal proceedings, Joe Kennedy and his wife Denise came close to divorce. Plus, last week he learned that her father’s health is declining, so he returned to Pensacola, FL — where they had been living for the past three years — to care for him.
As a result, Coach Kennedy decided to hang it up. He added in his resignation letter:
Bremerton’s football coaches, players, and parents have been such a blessing. I feel it is in everyone’s best interest I step back from coaching.
Kennedy chose his battles, and decided not to continue his conflict with the Bremerton School District.
You knew this was going to happen at X, the social media cesspool formerly known as Twitter.
Hemant Mehta, the self-described “friendly atheist,” was anything but friendly. He wrote at X:
Christian football coach Joe Kennedy has quit coaching after one game. This is what all of his critics said he would do because he never gave a shit about the athletes.
Mehta also crowed about his prescience. See, I knew this would happen!
This is what I wrote last week and it was spot-on. https://t.co/RbrRvWfMhY pic.twitter.com/GDDdnWYOSy
— Hemant Mehta (@hemantmehta) September 6, 2023
Other haters at X piled on with their own venom:
I’m so tired of “Christians”
His devices should be searched for CSAM. (child sexual abuse material).
So was it retaliation that made him quit <again> or a sick FIL? Maybe Coach Attentionwhore should pray over that. Quietly. By himself.
Others have accused Coach Kennedy of being a “Christian nationalist extremist.”
Plus, Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which represented the district, said we told you so!
For years, Kennedy and his lawyers have said all he wanted was his job back. We were skeptical. And now, here we are, right where we warned the Supreme Court we would be.
However, Coach Kennedy has been getting shade from the Left throughout his legal ordeal. In April, 2022, when the Supreme Court agreed to hear Kennedy’s case, Slate smeared him, twisting the facts about his case. Later in 2022, shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in Kennedy’s favor, columnist Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times reported that the coach had appeared with Donald Trump at the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey (how dare he!). As for SCOTUS itself, Westneat wrote, “It’s as if the justices wanted to script an ending for a Christian redemption movie.”
No wonder Kennedy’s life — and his marriage — were stretched to the breaking point. Nor is it any wonder he quit.
Financially, he should be fixed for life: in March, 2023, Kennedy accepted a $1,775,000 settlement package from the Bremerton School District. He also has a book that will be due out on October 24 called Average Joe: the Coach Joe Kennedy Story. In the book he writes:
Those prayers I prayed on the 50-yard line after the Bremerton High School football games were never for attention, and certainly never to proselytize impressionable minors. As a 20-year Marine Corps veteran who fought in the first Gulf War, I simply took issue with my constitutional rights being assaulted—the rights I had risked my life to support and defend against when I took my oath of enlistment.
But right now he has no plans to coach anywhere else. His publicist, Jennifer Willingham, told the Daily Signal that he is “looking forward to continue caretaking for his father-in-law in Florida and using his platform to raise awareness around the issues of religious liberty and freedom of speech.”
We at Victory Girls wish all the best for Coach Joe Kennedy for wherever God leads him in his life.
Featured image: “‘Huddle Up’ — Barrington Broncos High School Varsity Football Team Homecoming Game September 2014” by Ron Cogswell is licensed under CC BY 2.0. Cropped.
Cameron says: Good luck to him and I’m happy he won his fight. As for Hemant? Atheists are so adorable. They hate God with a passion but deny his existence in the same breath.
Liz says: Never heard of him, but he has over 100k followers.
Social media really is a garbage filled perverse incentive land.
Cameron says: I only know one atheist who isn’t a zealot with regards to his faith. The rest have pretty much been like that guy.
Liz says: Agreed.
Hate_me says: There are plenty of non-zealous atheists out there but, just like with vegans and CrossFitters, only the zealots think you should give a damn about their lifestyle.
Cameron says: Every encounter I have ever had with an atheist goes like this: If you so much as hint at the remotest possibility that you may concede in the existence of God, they will be on you like white on rice. The only exception to that is someone who has been my friend for several decades.
Of course that leads to a joke of mine: An atheist Marine that is a vegan and does CrossFit walks into a bar and puts a bullet in his head because he can’t figure out what to talk about first.
In this day and age, is 100k followers really anything noteworthy?
Only if he can survive off income from them.
Hate_me says: In this day and age, is 100k followers really anything noteworthy?
Scott says: Obviously, the left only supports kneeling for the flag, not in prayer.. why they’re so rare at Rodeos…
And yeah F@*K that Hemant guy…
NTSOG says: Speaking of kneeling and US football when is that famed quarterback Krappernick going to be playing again and with which team? I would dearly love to see him on the field spreadeagled by a couple of heavy tacklers.
Hate_me says: Prison league?
Cameron says: I will always remember with fondness his attempt at auditioning for a team only to have the guy that came with him get the offer instead.
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