Douche coah..

[R13]

*coach


According to the Associated Press, WLBT.com and USA Today, among other outlets, Peterson kicked 17-year-old placekicker Coy Sheppard, above, off the Mendenhall football team when Sheppard attempted to wear pink cleats in a practice following a game in October. As Sheppard explains in the video above, courtesy of WLBT.com, coaches ridiculed the kicker for wearing the shoes during the prior game, but he showed up for the team's Monday practice wearing the pink cleats regardless. Now the senior, who relied on academic credit from playing football to help fulfill graduation requirements, might not receive his diploma on time.

[Rewind: NFL quarterback slams breast cancer awareness footballs]

That inspired the player to file a lawsuit against the Simpson County School District, whose deputy superintendent, Tom Duncan, insisted that Sheppard was kicked off the team for failing to follow his coaches' instructions, not for the color of the shoes.

"It had absolutely nothing to do with lack of support for breast cancer awareness," Duncan told USA Today.

Yet the color of the shoes did have everything to do with breast cancer awareness. The cleats were a gift from Sheppard's 82-year-old great grandmother, a breast cancer survivor. Sheppard wore the cleats to honor her and his grandmother, also a breast cancer survivor.

"I do understand and we don't condone being disrespectful to the coaches," Joey Sheppard, Coy's father, told WLBT.com. "But he was standing up for what he thought was right. ...

[Rewind: QB refuses pink attire, gets sacked nine times]

"He's had five or six different colored shoes throughout his last two years of kicking for Mendenhall and when he got the pink shoes that's when it became an issue. I think it is the pink shoes."

While the coaching staff may have been the clear aggressors in this case, Sheppard still tried to apologize in order to gain reinstatement to the Mendenhall team. Evidently the coaches gave him the cold shoulder, ensuring that the teen's high school football career came to an early end because of a pair of shoes.

Now Sheppard's lawsuit seeks his official reinstatement to the Mendenhall football team, for his personal record to be cleared and for any monetary damages or donations to go straight to the American Cancer Society.

"I wish it could have been handled differently, where there could have been some compromise," Oliver Diaz, Sheppard's lawyer and a former Mississippi state Supreme Court justice said. "I think all the kid wants is to play football and finish out the year."

[Related: Even professional players fined for pink accessories]

That isn't going to happen without a fierce fight from the school district, which is backing its football coach to the hilt.

"This young man was defiant and I don't know many coaches in the state that wouldn't do the same thing. And his dad understands completely," Duncan told WLBT.com.

Mississippi player kicked off team after wearing pink cleats - Prep Rally - High School* - Yahoo! Sports

[MikeJones]

LOL at the coach being a douche. Why not let kids just wear whatever the hell they want? Screw uniforms. Right R13? Sounds like the kids dad isn't backing him either.

[Biggin]

so you support kicking a kid off a team because he wants to promote breast cancer awareness?

[MapleGap]

The kid should have asked first. Rules, without them we have chaos. Im sure the coach would have approved it for the right reasons. You cant just do things because you want to. Discipline! No different, say if you have a basketball team and one day they show up with headbands on, if the coach has a standing rule that says no headbands, then thats exactly what it means, no headbands.

[SWVA-Football]

Just my take going by the article:
They say he had worn 5 or 6 other different colored pairs of shoes before, so that says something right there. It seems to me that the pink shoes were worn to draw attention to himself, then when they were finally fed up with what he was doing, he began using the grandmother "Breast Cancer Awareness" excuse to conceal his real reason for choosing such a color to begin with. The fact that his coaches ridiculed him about it previously (which I'll assume was more of a warning than insult) and that he insisted on wearing them once again regardless shows that he disobeyed his coaches and was practically asking to be suspended or kicked off the team.

I don't think there's anything wrong with wearing a different color of shoe myself, and to raise awareness of breast cancer with the color pink is an honorable deed, but if you disobey your coaches and must follow rules they've laid out for you, you can't expect to keep everything in place by breaking those rules.

[Biggin]

he had worn 5-6 different pairs before, why wait til he goes with the pink one for a good cause to stop him? if the team rules were all same cleats, then he should have been kicked off the first time he did this, not when he put on the pink cleats.

from what the article reads, it says the coaches had no problems with him switching cleats until they were the pink ones, then hell was raised.

[MikeJones]

so you support kicking a kid off a team because he wants to promote breast cancer awareness?

No I dont. Where did you get that?


The kid could have asked the coach if the whole team could do something. That would have brought more awareness. Also if the kid was really trying to promote awareness there are plenty of other ways.

[SWVA-Football]

he had worn 5-6 different pairs before, why wait til he goes with the pink one for a good cause to stop him? if the team rules were all same cleats, then he should have been kicked off the first time he did this, not when he put on the pink cleats.

from what the article reads, it says the coaches had no problems with him switching cleats until they were the pink ones, then hell was raised.

Yeah that's true, it's strange they didn't question him before if it was such a big deal this time. They showed some of his other shoes in the video, though, and though they were colored differently they all looked like regular cleats. These pink shoes stood out far more than most others would, so I'm thinking their stark contrast to what he'd worn before (and the shoes other players were wearing that night) is what got him the boot.

[Biggin]

No I dont. Where did you get that?

because the article said that the coaches had no problem with the kid wearing different cleats until he wore the pink ones. he had worn 5-6 different pairs of cleats before but it was not an issue until the he donned the pink cleats, according to the article.

[MikeJones]

Basically the assistant coach told him to take them off at practice. He said he will when he was ready to. How much awareness are you gonna do at a HS football Practice.