{"id":20320,"date":"2023-11-17T02:39:19","date_gmt":"2023-11-17T08:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=20320"},"modified":"2023-11-17T02:39:28","modified_gmt":"2023-11-17T08:39:28","slug":"georgia-high-school-football-coach-fired-weeks-after-holding-baptism-ceremony-following-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=20320","title":{"rendered":"Georgia high school football coach fired weeks after holding baptism ceremony following practice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">A&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/us\/us-regions\/southeast\/georgia\"><u>football coach in Georgia<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;was fired after he held a ceremony to baptize 20 of his players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Isaac Ferrell will continue to teach in the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/us\/education\/high-school\"><u>Tattnall County School District<\/u><\/a>, superintendent Kristen Waters told Fox 28 Savannah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The Christian ceremony took place Oct. 23, with local pastor Gary Few&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/watch\/?v=1303273480351925\"><u>baptizing the players in tubs<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Some people in the district were apparently upset Ferrell&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/world\/religion\"><u>brought religion into athletics<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) attorney Chris Line wrote in a letter to Waters that Ferrell &#8220;abused his power.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;The district must refrain from infusing its football program with religion, and Coach Ferrell cannot be allowed to preach to student-athletes or allow a local pastor to preach to and baptize students,&#8221; he wrote.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Ferrell is now out of a coaching job. Waters, however, said the decision was made because of an incident after a game Nov. 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;The safety and security of our students is paramount to Tattnall County Board of Education,&#8221; Waters said in a statement. &#8220;Based on the outcome of an investigation into an incident that occurred Friday night, Nov. 3, while traveling after the football game, the district decided that it would seek a head football coach that aligned with the best interests of the students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/sports\/georgia-high-school-football-coach-relieved-duties-weeks-baptism-ceremony-practice\">Foxnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A&nbsp;football coach in Georgia&nbsp;was fired after he held a ceremony to baptize 20 of his players. Isaac Ferrell will continue to teach in the&nbsp;Tattnall County School District, superintendent Kristen Waters told Fox 28 Savannah. The Christian ceremony took place Oct. 23, with local pastor Gary Few&nbsp;baptizing the players in tubs. Some people in the district [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[24276,4091,24277,2005,6274],"class_list":["post-20320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-christian-ritual","tag-firing","tag-football-coaching","tag-georgia","tag-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20320"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20322,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20320\/revisions\/20322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}