After a legal saga that spanned nearly a decade, a Washington football coach returned to the sidelines for the first time since 2015 on Friday night after the Supreme Court ruled in his favor. Joe Kennedy, who coaches football at Bremerton High School, was let go over complaints about his post-game prayers on the 50-yard line.
“The prayer after the football game — that was just myself, I would just take a knee at the 50-yard line after football game,” Kennedy told Fox News last year. “After a few months, the kids would say: Coach, what are you doing out there? And I just said I was thanking God for what you did. They asked if they could join. And I said: it’s America, a free country, you do what you want to do. And that’s how that kind of started.”
The coach held his silent, 60 second prayers after games for seven years. Some parents eventually complained, however, including one mother who claimed Kennedy was opting not to play her son due to his atheist beliefs. Another parent, Paul Peterson, whose son played on the team in 2010, said the sight of the coach on the field surrounded by kneeling