SEATTLE — Carrying out what he called a personal act of faith, high-school football coach Joe Kennedy walked out to the 50-yard-line after a recent game, knelt down and prayed.
For that post-game ritual, the Bremerton, Washington, district superintendent suspended Kennedy with pay in late October and is debating whether to renew his contract, which ends in December.
The district's crackdown marks the latest high-profile injunction against prayer at football games in the United States, where Christian observances continue unabated in many public school sports arenas, despite court rulings limiting school-sponsored religious ceremonies.
Kennedy has performed variations on his ritual regularly over the last eight years as coach at the high school in Bremerton, a city of 40,000 about an hour's ferry ride from Seattle.