School district accepts retirement of East AL football coach who spoke out on COVID-19
The Russell County Board of Education accepted the retirement of Mark Rose, former head football coach, athletic director and teacher for Russell County High School.
No names publicly were mentioned during Thursday’s called meeting, conducted via teleconference, when the board voted on the agenda’s personnel items. But board member Keith Mitchell confirmed to the Ledger-Enquirer the board accepted Rose’s retirement, which was effective Tuesday.
“I respect his opinion and his concerns, but we tried to act within the guidelines given to us by the state department and the athletic association,” Mitchell said. “That is the only way we can have equity throughout the state if we’re all following the same guidelines.”
Rose’s dispute with the school district came down to COVID-19 testing, Mitchell said.
“I think that his concern was that we were not testing students on a weekly level,” he said. “… But the cost and the impact on that on a school system individually or on the state of Alabama, I mean, I don’t know if there’s any state doing that testing.
“But even then, you test a child on a Thursday, and he goes out that night celebrating passing his COVID test, and he comes back Friday and plays in a game and wakes up Saturday morning running a fever.”
Rose declined comment. Superintendent Brenda Coley wasn’t reached before publication.
‘Child exploitation’
Rose has been a harsh critic of playing high school football during the coronavirus pandemic. He even had a column about his view published in the Washington Post.
Rose, who played football for Pat Dye at Auburn University and has coached high school football for more than 20 years, called it “child exploitation” in an interview with NPR.
He told NPR that an asymptomatic outbreak within the Warriors locker room landed a 33-year-old assistant coach in ICU for nearly two weeks. One player’s mother was also infected, he said.
Rose told NPR that he cannot protect his players because of a lack of COVID-19 testing.
There is no policy in the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s COVID-19 protocols for testing football players.
A legal battle
Rose also sued the school board, including Superintendent Brenda Coley, in an attempt to prevent his termination as a coach, according to federal and local court documents obtained by the Ledger-Enquirer.
Rose alleged the defendants were violating his First Amendment rights to speak about matters of public concern.
The lawsuit said Rose was given two disciplinary letters on Aug. 31 and informed he would be terminated as head football coach. He alleged the two letters were given “in direct retaliation for Coach Rose speaking out to the media about AHSAA’s failure to adequately protect the safety of high school football players and failure to implement testing for the players.”
The claim was moved to federal court, where Rose sought to dismiss his federal claim without prejudice and remand the case to the Circuit Court of Russell County — meaning he can take it back to the county court if he so chooses.
Read the full copy of the lawsuit below:
This story was originally published December 3, 2020 at 4:52 PM.
