Trying to follow the footsteps of protesting professional football players, 2 high school students were kicked off the football team for protesting during the anthem.
Larry McCullough kneeled while the anthem played, while his cousin Cedric Ingram-Lewis raised a fist.
Immediately after the anthem ended, the students said, their coach, Ronnie Mitchem, told them to remove their uniforms because they were being kicked off the team, Houston Chronicle reports.
“He told us that disrespect will not be tolerated,” Ingram-Lewis said, “told us to take off our uniform and leave it there.”
Mitchem, the coach, said the boys left him no other option.
He said he had told the students beforehand that while it was alright to protest, they were not allowed to do it in that manner – kneeling during the anthem.
Mitchem, who is a former marine, said he believes kneeling offends people and veterans who have fought for the United States. He said:
That was my point of view. Like I said, I’m a former Marine. That just doesn’t fly and they knew that. I don’t have any problem with those young men. We’ve had a good relationship. They chose to do that and they had to pay for the consequences.
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