I was a public high school coach for forty years. Like it or not, I knew the kind of influence I had over my teams. If I got mad, they got scared. If I \u201clost my head\u201d, they certainly would lose theirs. My teams looked to me to understand how to handle both the good and the bad. And that wasn\u2019t always about winning and losing. Teammates and coaches died, best friends let us down, our sports were cut. My job was to help \u201cmy kids\u201d deal with the loss, the sadness, and the disappointment, as well as the joy. Part of that was to learn to deal with it all myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong, winning and losing were important, and emotional. The \u201chighs\u201d of winning were \u201ctight\u201d, all the negatives dropped away from that moment. And the \u201clows\u201d of losing were often tempered by the fact we shared them together. But the \u201creal\u201d life and death situations were soul changing. I\u2019ve never felt so close to a group of athletes and coaches as I did with a candle in my hand on our track, saying goodbye to a coach, or as we returned from our teamates\u2019 funerals to compete in a meet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I wanted to punch the locker room door, I did it when the kids weren\u2019t around. And when I wanted to drink a toast (or two) to my lost coach, I didn\u2019t do it with my team. There were things that were appropriate to share with those impressionable young athletes, and there were things that were not. They were personal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Christian conservatives on the\u00a0\u00a0United States Supreme Court gave a \u201cwink and a nod\u201d to a public high school coach from the state of Washington this week.\u00a0\u00a0God bless that man, Coach Kennedy. He\u2019s a devout Christian, so devout, that after his team\u2019s football game he felt called to go out onto the field and kneel in prayer.\u00a0\u00a0And he did it as the kids were still on the field, and the crowds were still in the stands.\u00a0\u00a0He believed that he was exercising his First Amendment right to practice his religion in the way he found appropriate, just as professional player Tim Tebow knelt in the end zone after scoring a touchdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there\u2019s a difference between Tebow and Kennedy. Tim Tebow was a private citizen, employed as a quarterback in the privately owned NFL. The coach is a public employee, hired to coach a public school football team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until last week, the Supreme Court had a firm standard, set in\u00a0Engle v Vitale\u00a0<\/em>in 1962.\u00a0\u00a0I remember when that case was decided.\u00a0\u00a0Until then, Mrs. Meyers led us Clifton Elementary School second graders in the Lord\u2019s Prayer each morning, right before we stood up and Pledged Allegiance to the flag.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m not sure any of us really understood what \u201cpledging allegiance\u201d meant, nor asking for our \u201ctrespasses\u201d to be forgiven.\u00a0\u00a0But then, one day, we no longer were saying the Lord\u2019s Prayer, nor were we given an hour of the school day to walk down to the nearby Episcopal Church for Bible study lessons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mrs. Meyer couldn\u2019t \u201cinstruct or lead\u201d us in religious education.\u00a0\u00a0If we wanted that, we should go to Annunciation School, the Catholic elementary just down the road.\u00a0\u00a0That was because Mrs. Meyers was employed by the Cincinnati Public Schools, and the city government didn\u2019t have a place in determining or instructing us in religion.\u00a0\u00a0They could teach us about religion, but they couldn\u2019t help us to practice a religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Years later as a social studies teacher I was very aware of that distinction when I taught \u201cworld religions\u201d. We went through all of the tenets of Judaism, Christianity and Islam; Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shintoism. We talked about what \u201cthey\u201d believed, even to the Jewish and Christian and Buddhist kids in the classroom who were the \u201cthey\u201d. One Buddhist parent thanked me for explaining it to his kid. I guess I got it right, or at least, I was on the \u201cmiddle path\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I did not analyze \u201cright\u201d or \u201cwrong\u201d, what was \u201cfact\u201d and what was \u201cmyth\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0I simply stated what the tenets of the faiths were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what\u2019s so wrong with Coach Kennedy, following his calling out onto the game field, and giving thanks to his Lord for a well-played game? Nothing \u2013 unless his players, his \u201ckids\u201d, interpret that as part of their \u201cteam\u201d activities. Football is a tough sport. Unlike my beloved Track and Field, where performance is objectively measured in seconds and inches, getting to start in Football is all about the coaches. It\u2019s their subjective decision. If you\u2019re fifteen and want to get on the field, then you don\u2019t want to \u201cpiss off\u201d the coach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every kid knows that. And so does every athlete who grew up in inter-scholastic sports. That includes high school football team captain John Roberts, and football and basketball player Bret Kavanaugh. Even Justice Samuel Alito ran track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So when your coach goes on the field, by himself, to pray, he doesn\u2019t have to \u201corder\u201d anyone to join him. His kids want to follow him, want to be a part of what he does. And even if they aren\u2019t sure about the whole \u201cpraying\u201d thing, they want to be \u201cin good\u201d with coach. They want to be with their buddies, and they want to be in the lineup. Who wants to \u201cstand out\u201d as the kid who didn\u2019t go?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Supreme Court gave a \u201cwink-wink\u201d to Coach Kennedy. They agreed that he was just expressing his individual right to his religion. He could have expressed it in his office, or at his car, or in the dark field after the lights were off and the kids were gone. There were many nights when I walked the track \u2013 alone \u2013 not to commune with my maker, but to savor the moment, or lower my blood pressure. But Kennedy didn\u2019t. Wink-Wink, he was just talking to his God, in private; under the lights, with his team, other teams, and fans in the stand. And they were talking with him. A coach is a leader. And Coach Kennedy was leading all of them in a religious action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it was all on the government payroll, essentially \u201csponsored\u201d by the Bremerton School District. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In Law School, we learned to take an event, and alter \u201cone thing\u201d to see if we could get the same result.\u00a0\u00a0It was called the \u201cwhat ifs\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0What if Coach Kennedy had rolled out a prayer rug and bowed to the East in Islamic Prayer?\u00a0\u00a0What if, instead of the Lord\u2019s Prayer, the chant was, \u201cHare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare, Hare\u201d?\u00a0\u00a0Are his actions still, OK?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wink-Wink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teaching Religion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Problem<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
His Right, Our Dime<\/h3>\n\n\n\n