Middle school football coach fired for planning team dinner at local Hooters
Well, this is awkward. A middle school football coach tries to do a nice thing by planning a team awards dinner, then is fired for the effort. There's just one catch: He insisted that the dinner be held at Hooters.
As reported by Portland news network KGW, Corbett Middle School (Corbett, Ore.) football coach Randall Burbach was fired after school officials learned that he set up an official team awards dinner at a Hooters restaurant in Jantzen Beach, Ore. For any of the uninitiated, Hooters' wait staff is entirely female and their uniforms feature the smallest amount of clothing outside of a strip club.
While the location of the Corbett football banquet may have been rife for criticism, there was an actual method to Burbach's madness. The coach polled his players, asking them where they wanted to have the team dinner. He claims that the squad chose Hooters as their ideal location, a decision which is perhaps unsurprising when you consider that the team is comprised entirely of boys aged 12-14. They'll have a side order of hormones with those chicken wings, please.
Burbach was offered a way out of the controversial dinner, with Corbett athletic director J.P. Soulagnet asking him to move the event to a different venue. When Burbach refused, Soulagnet said he had no choice but to dismiss the coach.
"I spoke with Randy Burbach this evening [Monday night] and asked him to move the event to a different venue," Soulagnet told parents in a letter obtained by the Portland media. "He was unyielding and emphatically said no for a number of reasons.
"Some might say that this restaurant objectifies women. I would tend to agree. It is not a restaurant that I would feel good about my wife or daughter working at. I think it sends the wrong message to our young men and that saddens and worries me the most."
As Soulagnet made clear, Burbach refused to give in to the pressure of parents and school officials, apparently because he felt that he had the moral high ground. The coach insisted that he would not be "bullied by a vocal minority."
Now, Burbach will head to dinner at Hooters himself, albeit without the job that had motivated the trip in the first place.
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is the editor of Prep Rally on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at preprallyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
