Football Players Stand Behind Coach in Team Prayer Issue

Photo courtesy of David Neesley

Despite Naperville School District 203 Superintendent Dan Bridges saying no more prayers would be led by Naperville Coach Michael Stine, the football players on the team are still ready to offer one up for the Lord.

A message sent out to local media by Daniel Bumpus, a four-year member of the Redhawk Football Program, claims he and the rest of the team discussed the issue and decided they will stand behind their coach.

“We, as a football team and a family, give Coach Stine our full support,” Bumpus wrote in the letter. “He is the best coach in the state and cares about each and every one of us more than any other coach cares about his players. We are proud that he is willing to stand up for his faith and for the example he sets for us.”

Bumpus said Coach Stine is a role model for the whole team and that they will continue to pray.

“The players will continue this tradition of praying before our games and would like to extend an invitation to all members of the Freedom From Religion Foundation to come out next fall and watch us pray and play the game we love. Go Redhawks.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation served the school district with a complaint earlier in the week saying Coach Stine was violating the First Amendment and the separation of church and state by leading the team in a prayer.

Bridges said Thursday he would ban team prayers at Naperville athletic events.

The Foundation became aware of the prayer after a photograph taken by David Neesley showed the team kneeling and in prayer.

Neesley told the Tribune that he did not bring the photograph to the Foundation’s attention.

“I follow the Redhawks, and I just like to document stuff,” Neesley told the Tribune, adding that the moments of players praying were just part of the game.

FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said that the players “are coming to the defense of inappropriate religious conduct by a school authority figure — in this case, the coach who makes or breaks their athletic experience,” according to the Chicago Tribune.

“It’s not the fault of these students that they do not understand the legal principle being violated when a coach leads, encourages or participates in prayer with student players. That was the job of Naperville Central High School, and it has failed abysmally. Public schools exist to educate, not indoctrinate,” Gaylor said in a statement as reported by the Tribune. “Public school athletes should not be coached to ‘pray and play the game we love,’ as the players put it in their statement.”