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I'm just surmising it was probably the
community that rallied around you, and it

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was the community against this school district
and the outside world. Yeah, and

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even farther than that, it was
almost the whole United States came against the

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school district for just being so ridiculous
about this, their email system, their

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servers or phone lines and faxes with
the outbour saying, you guys are crazy.

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Let this guy do his prayer and
leave him alone so we can just

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continue on with life. Welcome to
the Other Dewsuge edition of The Chicks on

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00:00:34,719 --> 00:00:38,920
the Right Show. Very very excited
to have with a special guest, Coach

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Joe Kennedy, who is a twenty
year marine vet former high school football coach,

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and he is a person who took
on cancel culture, fought for his

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freedom of expression and religion and one. And he is the author of Average

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Joe, a book that is available
now. And for those folks in our

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audience who may not be familiar with
your story, Coach, there's probably no

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one better to tell it than you, So if you wouldn't mind giving folks

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who are unfamiliar with your story sort
of a timeline of events and let people

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know what you fought and the battle
that you won, and just will see

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where the conversation takes us after that. Sure, well, it actually for

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my book and my whole life.
It started from an unwanted pregnancy. So

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I was an unwanted kid, and
from early in the womb, I didn't

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know what my life would planned.
From everything, I thought, nobody ever

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wanted me, and I was an
outcast everywhere. I was put into the

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foster you know foster system, group
homes, boys homes, and kind of

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had a rough childhood and I really
didn't know what I wanted to do.

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I knew I was a fighter,
and I just basically just wanted to just

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be angry at the world. It
wasn't until I probably got old enough where

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I started to realize that I needed
to do with my life, and I

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joined the military and I found a
place to put that anger. And you

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know, the military is a great
place because they kind of pay you to

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fight, which is a really good
thing for me. It's Christmas and holiday

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season, you guys. You know
what that means. Time for gift giving,

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partying with friends and family, and
then you get all the compliments everywhere

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you go because they're gonna be like, dang, you look good girl,

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you look young thanks to Genusell.
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That's seven zero mock seven zero.
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take advantage go to ge n u cel

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dot com slash chicks and yeah,
though I served for twenty years in the

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military, I got to go to
Desert Storm and serve in combat and serve

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my country. Found out what my
love was for my country. And that's

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where I guess my love for the
Constitution really originated from why it means so

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much to me. When I got
out of the Marine Corps, I met

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up with my childhood sweetheart and kind
of got to the whole God thing and

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he took over my life from there. And next thing I know, I'm

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coaching high school football and I started
praying on the fifty yard line. It

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was my commitment with God and just
to say a simple prayer of thanks after

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a football game. And that went
on for eight years. And in our

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eight season it started becoming a problem
with the school district and it turned into

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a big, ugly lawsuit and ended
up having to go through eight years of

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battling in the court systems to the
Supreme Court twice and eventually ended up winning

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in the Supreme Court, but it
took eight years to get there. So

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I guess that's a wrap up of
everything. So why do you think it

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became a problem as the years went
on. Do you think that's just a

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symptom of our culture, because it's
interesting that you say that it took eight

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years for them to find a problem
with that when you were a coach for

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that long, right, And it
wasn't that they were against me or anything

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like that. So these people are
my friends. We've worked together for almost

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a decade. My wife worked for
the school district for about fifteen years,

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and you know, we spent holidays
together, we went to church together.

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So these people were not my enemies, and you don't want to just get

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rid of me. They actually started
everything from it was a compliment. Somebody

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saw what we were doing and gave
a compliment to our school. Well,

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of course with any compliment, they
want to find out what the basis of

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it was and wanted to make sure
we were following in line with the school

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district, because they have one policy
that said you cannot encourage nor discourage kids

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in prayer, and we were following
that to the tea. But by then

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you have these hate groups that want
to get rid of all religion in the

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public square, and they got ahold
of it and started representing the school district

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and boom. Next thing, you
know, we have this council culture and

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they want to just move it,
and it started the big war, and

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they just it was so much easier
for the school district just to remove it

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than to actually stand up for something. So they basically just folded to this

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group. So just to be clear, though, because as I understand it,

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you never asked a student to join
you. This was something that you

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were doing on your own, and
then other students saw you and wanted to

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participate, and so this was completely
voluntary. You were not requiring your players

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to participate at all. This was
just something that you felt compelled to do,

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and so did they. And so
why someone from the outside decided to

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have a big, fat problem with
that, I cannot fathom. Yeah,

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they started making up stories of fabricating. As you read the transcript through the

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court cases, they came up with
a different story every time. And they

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started the things of all the kids. The kids felt pressured and they couldn't

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play if they didn't pray, and
nobody I talked to everybody. I said,

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you know, find a kid that
felt pressure or I even asked because

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if as far as I'm concerned,
if I told the kid he had to

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pray, then that's just as bad
as telling them that they can't pray.

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It was totally voluntary. And then
taking a step further. Once the school

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district told me that I needed to
stop praying with the kids, I immediately

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did. I didn't pray with my
team ever again. Yet they continue to

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come after me because they could still
see me praying even though I was alone.

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Oh my gosh, this is like
totally outrageous. So it became more

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of a thing where it was like
the outside of the school. It wasn't

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your kids, And I imagine that
the people in the community probably rallied around

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you, and so it really was, in essence, not just you,

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but it was probably the community.
I'm just surmising it was probably the community

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that rallied around you, and it
was the community against the school district and

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the outside world. Yeah, and
even farther than that, it was almost

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the whole United States came across or
came against the school district for just being

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so ridiculous about this. I mean, praying on a football field is nothing

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new. It wasn't something I originated. This has been going on in sports

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long before any of us were born. Since sports had been originated, so

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the whole idea of that this was
some kind of new thing that I started.

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But there were a huge outrage in
our community, this school, my

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team, the parents of my kids, and everybody around you. It was

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so so incredible to see the outreach
across the entire world against the school district

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saying are you guys crazy? They
shut down their their email system, their

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servers, their phone lines and faxes
with the outpoor saying you guys are crazy.

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Let this guy do his prayer and
leave him alone so we could just

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continue on with life. So it
was amazing to see the outpour of support

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in my favorite. Yeah, it's
really it's really weird because I watched the

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other day, I was watching Hoosiers. I'm sure you've seen the movie Hoosiers

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because we're both Miriam and I are
both from Indiana and so it's like a

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basketball thing. But the movie Hoosier
is in there. In that movie,

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right before they go out and they
play the big game, well really most

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games, but right before they went
out and they played the big game,

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they had the preacher come in and
pray with them. And they always had

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a preacher with them, and they
prayed before the game, and this was

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just something that was ingrained in us. We're both gen xers, and I

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obviously I don't know how old you
are, but I feel like you're probably

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probably right. And I just feel
like, growing up, that's what we

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knew and we're straying so far from
that philosophy, from that culture, and

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I don't like it. I just
don't like how we're moving in another,

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a completely different direction, like people
are just they're so I don't like that.

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I don't want it. I don't. But that's how we grew up.

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We grew up with just the notion
of that's what you did before a

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game. That's what that's what schools
did, that's what people did, that's

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what our communities are the nation,
that's what we did. And so it

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just is it's foreign to me that
people would be like, oh my gosh,

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we can't have that, and so
we can't have that at games,

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and it's just and plus I live
in Texas. I feel like in Texas

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we do we still do that at
least in most part. Absolutely. Well,

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you think about the way that those
country originally started and how far we've

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00:10:15,080 --> 00:10:18,279
fallen from that, all the way
to our generation. So each generation we've

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blots a little bit and a little
bit and a little bit. So this

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is where we are today. So
it's because people are just not stood up

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for the rights and have lit to
let little things slide, you know,

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00:10:28,799 --> 00:10:33,480
and let things go by. So
how did you get connected with First Liberty,

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00:10:33,519 --> 00:10:37,799
the law firm that represented you throughout
this whole thing? How did how

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00:10:37,799 --> 00:10:41,360
did that connection get made? Did
they did they come to you? Did

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00:10:41,360 --> 00:10:45,720
you find them? How did that
all work? It was that it's stranger

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00:10:45,799 --> 00:10:52,399
than than reality. Then it was
it's so hard to believe. So I

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00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:56,200
didn't want to talk to anybody,
especially to lawyers. I figured we could

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00:10:56,240 --> 00:10:58,960
work this all out on our own
where adulties are friends. We could work

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00:11:00,080 --> 00:11:03,360
this all out. And then when
I realized that their lawyers were just beating

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00:11:03,399 --> 00:11:07,960
me up over this, and I
didn't know what to do. I had

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00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:11,759
a friend of a friend, which
is so ridiculous, that happened to be

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00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:16,799
at a law conference with First Liberty, and God just put it all together

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00:11:16,840 --> 00:11:22,799
all at once. So all these
coincidences were happening and it just led to

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00:11:22,840 --> 00:11:24,919
the perfect thing. They gave me
a call and said, hey, I'm

159
00:11:24,919 --> 00:11:26,440
a friend of this guy who was
a friend of your friend. It was

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00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:30,480
so funny and I'm so obscure,
and I said, well, if you're

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00:11:30,519 --> 00:11:33,320
a friend of my friend, I'll
give you a try. And we talked

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00:11:33,320 --> 00:11:37,120
and the first thing they asked is
you're not one of those religious whack jobs,

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00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:41,440
are you? And I just started
laughing and I was like, oh,

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00:11:41,559 --> 00:11:43,759
if you think that, I mean, I was expecting that's what they

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00:11:43,759 --> 00:11:46,879
were looking for. I'm like,
I'm so far from that. If that's

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00:11:46,919 --> 00:11:50,799
what you're looking for, I'm not
the right guy. You know, I'm

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00:11:50,840 --> 00:11:52,440
a train wreck, man. I'm
just trying to figure out my own life

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00:11:52,440 --> 00:11:56,039
and my relationship with God. So
no, I'm not the big religious dude.

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00:11:56,080 --> 00:11:58,679
And they said, yeah, we'll
take your case. And so yeah,

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00:11:58,720 --> 00:12:01,679
it was a great relationship. And
there's still my friends even to today

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00:12:01,720 --> 00:12:05,399
now that they're not even representing me. I consider these guys just family and

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00:12:05,480 --> 00:12:09,600
friends. Now. My pillow right
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take the whole the whole process of
sewing or a guest counter sewing or whatever

194
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it ended up being, like,
how long till you ultimately got that verdict

195
00:13:41,480 --> 00:13:43,879
that you know what you need to
be reinstated at the school and you're perfectly

196
00:13:43,879 --> 00:13:48,120
welcome to prey on the field as
much as you want. It was eight

197
00:13:48,200 --> 00:13:54,320
years and nine football seasons before I
stepped back onto the field. Oh my

198
00:13:54,480 --> 00:13:58,320
god, gosh. And then you
did right like you went back, but

199
00:13:58,440 --> 00:14:01,240
now you're no longer there. I
can't imagine what it was like to go

200
00:14:01,360 --> 00:14:03,399
back at Yes, I know that's
what I was wondering too, Like what

201
00:14:03,440 --> 00:14:07,159
was that like for you to go
back? And eight years? Oh my

202
00:14:07,279 --> 00:14:13,000
goodness. Yeah, these kids were
in grade school that I walked onto the

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00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:16,200
field with this time, and I
knew the school wasn't going to be happening

204
00:14:16,240 --> 00:14:18,440
with me coming back. And you
know, you know, as you say

205
00:14:18,480 --> 00:14:22,960
in Texas, you know, and
bless those guys for you know, having

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me back. And yeah, they
did. The football team coaches, they

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did as best as they could dealing
with it. They were under an immense

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amount of pressure and didn't want to
be part of this. But the school

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district they were. They were acting
very childish and did a bunch of,

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you know, things that you would
expect, you know, three year olds

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to be doing with their tantrums.
But it was best that I did go.

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I faced my giant. I was
true to my word because the only

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thing I asked for was to be
able to be a coach and to be

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able to pray after a football game. I accomplished those two things, and

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I feel like I ran the race. I finished the race, and I

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remain faithful throughout, and now I
could just move on with my life in

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the school district, to move on
with theirs, and we could all live

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happily ever after hopefully. Yeah,
good for you, Good for you.

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So then you decided to write the
story? I mean that was your next

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step? Or how did this?
Like, how did that happen that you

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wrote your story after experiencing all that? And is that your path? Now?

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Are you going to be doing book
tours? Are you going to be

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doing speaking engagements? Like? Where
are you going to coach again? Yeah?

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Well, I don't know where God
has me to go next. I've

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been a servant my whole life.
I've always liked to serve, you know,

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from the early age. You know, when I was in the military,

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I found that that was my calling
to serve, especially when I was

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the coach. I found out that
my calling was to work with people and

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to help other people. And so
I don't know what my future holds.

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We started writing actually a screenplay for
a movie. Way back when it first

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started. Somebody heard my testimony and
he got all excited. It's the guys

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that did the movie God's Not Dead, and they got excited and said,

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wow, this sounds like a movie. So they started writing a screenplay.

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And as time went on, I
was like, yeah, sure, sure,

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there's going to be a movie about
it. And then I started catalytic

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blogging all the different things that happened
in my life. As I was telling

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my story over and over, and
people were like, this needs to be

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shared. So we actually wrote a
book because most people only read the headlines

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and they don't understand who the person
was behind all this and why I stood

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up as long as I did.
Over really, this was a principle of

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the matter. It wasn't really a
huge religious thing for me. This was

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a constitutional thing, and it was
a principle of it that you can't tell

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people in America that they can't stand
up for their fundamental rights as Americans.

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And that's and it was something so
simple as a prayer, a thirty second

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prayer. Yeah, it would have
been so easy just to give up on

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that and to go along and remain
a coach. Yes, I totally agree.

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And I didn't want a big lawsuit
to go to the Supreme Court and

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costs millions of dollars. It would
have been so much easier for everybody if

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I would have done that. But
it was the principle of it. And

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I want people to understand why the
principle of it mattered, and why it

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especially mattered to me as as a
marine, and where I came from in

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my in my past of being a
fighter, and hell that I've been prepared

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my whole life to take on these
kind of fights. Is you know,

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kind of the underdog to win these
battles or to take on these battles.

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Yeah, this is perhaps the most
important question that you're going to have to

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answer, and that is who is
going to play you in the movie?

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Do you want to play you?
Is it George, George Clooney, brack

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God, No any idiot could play
me. That was That was the biggest

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thing. I was like, do
not spend money on that. You need

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to make sure the one who's playing
my wife. That's the important one in

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my book. And you know,
anybody, right, wife is like,

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Okay, who's it going to be? Your wife is like, Okay,

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We're got to think of like the
most awesome actress to play me, because

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that's what I would be doing if
I were your wife, I'd be like,

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Okay, who's it gonna be.
It's gotta be like the most gorgeous,

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wonderful actress to play me. Yeah, exactly. So we actually finished

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filming about a month ago. For
the movie, we kind of kept that

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under wraps. Yeah, So,
I don't know if you ever watched there

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it is. I don't know if
you ever watched the show suits the Netflix

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series. And but Eric Close is
the guy who's playing me, and he's

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been in a bunch of things,
but that's where I knew him from.

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And Amy actor is playing Denise and
my wife Denise, and yeah, so

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we got to be on the scene, gotta watch him shoot a bunch of

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bunch of it. They gotta,
we gotta sit down with those guys,

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and they wanted to be really true
to us. That's what was really important

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to us. We didn't want them
to make this a big Hollywood you know

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thing where it wasn't, you know, a true story. We wanted them

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to really go by what who we
are and not make it a big fluff

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story, you know kind of thing. So did they like study your mannerisms

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and stuff like that, that he
follow you around and like watch how you

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drink your coffee and stuff like that. Well, mine was you know,

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how I slug a red bull.
After he spent like two hours with me,

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he goes, I'm so simple.
He goes, yeah, Eric goes,

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I think I got you man,
And I was like, I told

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you, mine was easy. But
it was great that they spent amy spent

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so much time with my wife and
all the other people that were writing Denis's

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character spent a lot of time and
really developed her character. Because everything's been

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written about me in this, you
know, in the book and interviews and

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stuff, so they had me down
pat. But they wanted to tell Denise's

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story because I think her story is
a thousand times better than mine. She

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was the HR director. Yeah,
she was the HR director for the school

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district that I sued, So,
you know, she had to fire me.

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I had to sue her. You
know. So there's a huge story

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behind the story. Yeah yeah,
oh mys just crazy. That's what this

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is. Like the best trailer,
you know, the best preview of a

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00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:23,359
movie ever. Yeah. Sure,
And if the book is anything like it,

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then that's that. It's definitely a
reason that people should buy it.

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Your Your Fight is so important.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like it has

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had the national impact on other school
systems. So for example, just this

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past when was it Amy Joe was
like over the summer it was a nice

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00:20:41,559 --> 00:20:45,759
summer. Yeah, my son's because
he's a high school lacrosse player and his

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00:20:45,960 --> 00:20:52,519
coach passed away unexpectedly in a car
accident and it was horrible. And that

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00:20:52,799 --> 00:20:56,799
same night that the news broke there
there were a bunch of people parents,

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00:20:57,079 --> 00:21:02,039
all the people who knew and loved
him, wanted to have a candlelight vigil

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at the field and they had invited
a pastor to come and you know,

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participate in that. And the school
said no, that the vigil was fine,

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but that it was not going to
be allowed to have a pastor give

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any kind of prayer, because that
would make it non inclusive. And so

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it was so and I was like, but that's like the literal definition of

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a vigil, you know what I
mean, Like it is to is to

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is to honor the person who's passed
with prayer. And so it just was

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it was mind boggling to me that
this is something that obviously is still an

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issue across the country, across schools. So even though you won your fight,

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there's a lot of work to be
done. What would you tell other

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people about your fight and what they
can learn from it. Oh, and

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00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:52,599
that's a huge thing because they had
every right to have a pastor or priest

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anybody to do that circuit. And
and that's the sortiest part of America is

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that we've been under the assumption for
the past fifty years and what this whole

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00:22:03,759 --> 00:22:07,119
thing of separation in church and state. And number one, it's not in

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00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:12,039
the constitution. Everybody's been under the
assumption because of this bad case law,

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00:22:12,079 --> 00:22:15,920
which is boring is all get out, But it's they've just understood that the

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00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:21,759
separation in church and state means a
certain thing and that's not what it was

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00:22:21,799 --> 00:22:26,359
ever designed to mean, and it's
supposed to be where if people are protected,

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00:22:26,359 --> 00:22:29,960
where the state cannot come in and
attack the church, which it's been

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00:22:30,039 --> 00:22:32,200
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to express themselves in America and it's
live and well. Our religious freedom is

350
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intact. The First Amendment means exactly
what it says that we do have the

351
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freedom of speech, the freedom of
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352
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where those all work in conjunction with
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So if you go to First Liberty
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that tells you what your rights are
as an American, and just get people

356
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educated, get involved in your churches
and your schools and find out what they're

357
00:24:32,079 --> 00:24:34,680
teaching and what they're saying, and
we can go and educate our system since

358
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:40,119
they try to keep these things secret
from people, and it's so much easier

359
00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:44,279
to keep people ignorant than it is
to actually teach people today of what the

360
00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:48,720
rights are. Such a good message
and aim that. Yeah, I mean

361
00:24:48,759 --> 00:24:52,079
your story is super inspiring and you've
obviously made a huge difference. Where can

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00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:56,200
people pick up a copy of your
book and how do they connect with you?

363
00:24:56,960 --> 00:25:00,240
Yeah, so it's nothing really original. So the average Joe is my

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00:25:00,319 --> 00:25:03,759
book. The movie is going to
be Average Joe. Can imagine that.

365
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:07,440
You can pick it up on Amazon, you can pick it up Barnes and

366
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:15,359
Noble and wherever books are sold.
And yeah, and you can get a

367
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:19,400
hold of me on It's not nothing
original again, coach Joe Kennedy dot com.

368
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:25,200
And yeah, I think it's a
great read where where it keeps people

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00:25:25,279 --> 00:25:29,359
very entertained. You might laugh,
cry and be mad at me at times,

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00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:33,880
and really should inspire people to get
off their butts and say, if

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00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:36,519
this guy can do it, imagine
what God can do with me. Love

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00:25:36,559 --> 00:25:38,519
it. I love it that I
can't wait to read and then and then

373
00:25:38,559 --> 00:25:41,319
see the movie looks un Fortunately,
it's been a light talking to you.

374
00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:45,839
Thanks so much. You all are
awesome. Thank you so much. We'll

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00:25:45,839 --> 00:25:45,400
talk to you guys