Coaching and Praying

The Supreme Court’s most recent term created beaucoup controversy, as the conservative majority eroded or sledgehammered abortion rights, gun regulations, Federal climate change oversight, and a state’s decision not to provide public money to religious schools. 

Large and far-reaching as those decisions are, one case in particular struck me, because I have some familiarity with the circumstances. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, a high school football coach who prayed at midfield and led players and coaches in prayer following games didn’t have his contract renewed and sued that he was being discriminated against. In a 6-3 ruling the Supreme Court said that the school district violated Joseph Kennedy’s rights under the Free Speech and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment. 

I’ll leave it to the legal minds that occupy this here digital tree fort to debate the details and merit of the ruling, but I suspect that Kennedy’s case is less about free expression of faith and more about power and control. The local school board didn’t attempt to silence Kennedy or to prevent him from praying. Officials were concerned that they would be viewed as complicit in violating the separation of church and state by permitting Kennedy to continue his prayer sessions publicly and visibly at a public school event. The board offered to provide him with a private space to pray, off the field, and asked if he might delay his prayer sessions until after spectators departed. He declined and continued his post-game, midfield sessions until the school board dismissed him. 

Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing the majority opinion, said that Kennedy “offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied,” and that he made “short, private, personal prayer.” He dismissed any notion that Kennedy’s prayer sessions might be implicitly coercive. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in dissent, cheekily included a photo of a Kennedy prayer session in which he stood amid dozens of kneeling players and wrote that it was common knowledge that Kennedy invited others to join. 

This is where power and control come in. Kennedy coached teenaged boys. He had some sway over their playing time, their status on the team, their health and well-being, possibly their futures. If he invites players to prayer sessions, how many of them, or their parents, would say, “Nah, Coach, I’ma pass, and ya know, I’m not really comfortable with the whole thing.” Not many, I’d guess. 

Coaches have enormous influence over the athletes they work with. In my previous life as a sportswriter, I witnessed it pretty much daily. The best coaches understand the role they play and are judicious about how much of their lives and beliefs to introduce to young people, knowing that kids often want to please or that it may differ from what they experience at home. 

Is there a place for faith in sports or schools? Of course. But it’s humble and it’s personal. If it ends up in a Washington D.C., courtroom, something’s amiss.