BREMERTON, Wash. (ChurchMilitant.com) – Coach Joe Kennedy will return to the sidelines for his team’s opening game next month, marking his comeback after a seven-year hiatus and a Supreme Court victory.
Coach Joe Kennedy
The Bremerton High School assistant coach will also resume his post-game prayer ritual, a practice that led to his dismissal in 2015.
“I have been looking forward to this since the 2015 season,” Kennedy told The Daily Signal. “I am praying for a fantastic fall for our Knights.”
Kennedy is inviting all Americans to take a knee in prayer with him on Sept. 1, the night of his team’s first game.
According to the Restoring Faith in America website, after signing up to participate, people will (1) take the “First Freedom Challenge” by praying with Coach Kennedy on Friday, Sept. 1, and (2) record a short video message or take a photo underscoring why expressions of faith and the right to pray are important and articulating why they are taking part in the First Freedom Challenge and taking a knee to pray with Coach Kennedy.
The webpage contends, “This is a first simple yet powerful step [sic] we can take to restore faith in our schools. God has opened an incredible door for all Americans to express their faith and bring faith back to our communities.”
Kennedy’s book, Average Joe: The Coach Joe Kennedy Story, is slated for an Oct. 24 release. A passage from the book reads, “As a 20-year Marine Corps veteran who fought in the first Gulf War, I simply took issue with my constitutional rights being assaulted — the rights I had risked my life to support and defend against when I took my oath of enlistment.”
A film adaptation, Average Joe, produced by GND Media Group, the creators behind God’s Not Dead, is also in the works.
In March, after the announcement of Kennedy’s return, the Bremerton School Board voted unanimously to approve a settlement of almost $2 million with Kennedy.
In a June 2022 video, Kennedy shared that he accepted the coaching position in 2008 after watching the movie Facing the Giants. “I had a prayer answered just like that, and I made a covenant there that, just like in the movie, you know, I’m going to give You the glory after every game, win or lose,” he confided.
Kennedy began taking a knee in prayer by himself at the 50-yard line after each game. “It was just me going out there and taking a knee by myself and giving thanks for what the players just did,” explained the coach. “The prayers, how long they were, I would say probably average 8 to 12 seconds. I’m not a great prayer guy. It was really, ‘Thank You, God, for what these young men just did on the field, and thank You for letting me be part of it.'”
Roughly six months in, some players began to inquire about his midfield ritual. He responded that he was “just thanking God for what you guys did.”
Unprovoked, some of the players asked their coach if they could join him. Kennedy replied, “This is a free country. It’s America; you can do whatever you want to do.” Players started to accompany Kennedy until 2015, when concerns arose.
The Bremerton coach received a letter in September 2015 demanding he stop praying with the players in order to avoid controversy or offense. “It was really simple for me to agree with them and say, ‘That’s not a problem.’ I never prayed with the kids ever again,” averred Kennedy.
First Liberty attorney Jeremy Dys
Kennedy was then barred from praying at all, even alone. “If he did it one more time, he would be suspended,” expounded First Liberty attorney Jeremy Dys. “He was, and then he was fired. … In his file, they said, ‘Do not rehire Coach Kennedy for the next season.'”
“I decided to file the lawsuit after I realized that I was not going to be able to win this by myself,” Kennedy disclosed. “There was no way I could talk to the school district anymore. Their lawyers said I was not to be in any contact with the school or anyone at the school unless it was through the lawyers.”
After years, Kennedy’s case escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court. Before learning how the justices would rule, he expressed, “The only thing I’m asking the Supreme Court is that I get to be a coach and I get to thank God afterwards.”
“This legal battle, it’s worn on me. … It’s been really tough, but you know, in the third and fourth quarter of a football game, you got to keep going. I don’t care how tired you are and how painful it is; you just got to keep going and you got to finish,” Kennedy proclaimed. “There’s still time on the clock. That’s what I’ve always coached, and now I have to actually live by it.”
Kennedy reassured his followers the fight was well worth it:
If I could go back, would I take a knee? In a second. There would be no doubt in my mind. I would still do it, even if I had to go through all this again. Giving up your faith — it’s not something I’m going to give up on, and I’m not going to give up on the fight for everybody’s rights. Nobody should have to worry about being fired for their faith.
On June 27, 2022, the Supreme Court voted 6–3 in favor of Kennedy. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the opinion of the court that
Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic — whether those expressions take place in a sanctuary or on a field, and whether they manifest through the spoken word or a bowed head. Here, a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a brief, quiet, personal religious observance doubly protected by the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment. And the only meaningful justification the government offered for its reprisal rested on a mistaken view that it had a duty to ferret out and suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech. The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination.
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