Texas HS Football Players Stripped Of Uniforms, Kicked Off Team After Anthem Protest

CROSBY, TX — Two high school football players from a Crosby private school were dismissed from the team and ordered by their coach to remove their equipment on the football field after they protested the national anthem Friday night.

Larry McCullough, 18, and Cedric Ingram Lewis, 16, were kicked off the Victory and Worship Academy football team by Head Coach Ronnie Mitchem after McCullough knelt and Lewis stood but raised a closed fist during the national anthem.

Mitchem told KHOU that he was aware that the two players, who are also cousins, wanted to protest and told them that kneeling or anything else during the national anthem would be considered disrespectful. (Want to get daily news updates and other events going on in your area? Sign up for the free Humble-Kingwood Patch morning newsletter.)

The boys offered to leave the team, but Mitchem asked them to stay and said he provided the players with other methods of protest, other than kneeling during the national anthem.

When the players protested in the manner they chose, Mitchem had them come to the sideline and remove their uniforms and leave, KPRC reported.

McCullough and Lewis both said the incident humiliated them, and parents were shocked to see the incident unfolding from the stands and expressed their anger with Mitchem.

The Victory and Worship Academy is a Christian-based home school group founded and managed by Mitchem.

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