October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the color pink was everywhere to remind of us this awful illness. You couldn’t miss seeing pink because it was everywhere. Even MLB players and NFL teams showed their support by wearing pink wristbands, pink edged hats and even pink cleats. Everywhere you looked there it was…pink was the “new” black.
National Breast Cancer Awareness Month
So, tell me how could Chris Peterson, head football coach at Mendenhall (Mississippi) High School kick Coy Shepard, the teams 17 year old placekicker, off of the team for wearing a pair of pink cleats to practice? Is he heartless? Is he stupid?
Can a person be so mean to kick someone off of the team for honoring their Great-Grandmother and Grandmother, who are both breast cancer survivors? You see, Sheppard was wearing the cleats that his 82 year-old great grandmother, a breast cancer survivor gave him. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a kid like Coy Sheppard in their lives, but that didn’t stop Coach Peterson from kicking him off of the team.
According to the Associated Press, Peterson kicked Sheppard off of the team after he attempted to wear the pink cleats in a practice following a game in October. As Sheppard explained to NBC affiliate, WLBT.com, coaches ridiculed him for wearing the shoes during the prior game, but he showed up for the team’s Monday practice wearing them anyway. Now the senior, who relied on academic credit from playing football to help fulfill graduation requirements, might not receive his diploma on time.
Sheppard has filed a lawsuit against the Simpson County School District, whose deputy superintendent, Tom Duncan, insisted that Sheppard was kicked off of the team for failing to follow his coaches’ instructions not for the color of his shoes.
“It has absolutely nothing to do with lack of support for breast cancer awareness,” Duncan told the USA Today.
“He’s had five or six different colored shoes throughout his last two years of kicking for Mendenhall and when he got the pink shoes that’s when it became an issue. I think it is the pink shoes,” Joey Sheppard (Coy’s Dad), told WLBT.com.
Sheppard’s lawsuit seeks his official reinstatement to the Mendenhall football team, for his personal record to be cleared and for any monetary damages or donations to go straight to the American Cancer Society.
So, what can we learn from this story? Well, there are some great kids out there who will stand up for what they believe in and Coy Sheppard is one of them. If there was one thing that I wish Coach Peterson would learn from this it is…sometimes it’s not about being right, but about doing what’s right…I wish more coaches took the time to teach that on the field.