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CBS This Morning
New York News
Utah football
coach suspends entire team, requires teens show good character to play
By Erik Ortiz
Sept. 26, 2013
Coach Matt Labrum made a controversial decision to suspend his entire
football team for questionable off-field behavior.
To have clear eyes and full hearts, they had to lose.
A Utah high school football coach blindsided his players when he
announced last weekend he was suspending all 80 of them — and warned
that they had to earn their way back onto the squad by showing good
character.
Coach Matt Labrum’s unconventional play wasn’t just about the team’s
on-field record, although they had just come off a crushing loss. He
was more concerned about how the Union High School teens were handling
themselves away from the gridiron after hearing reports of
cyberbullying, bad grades and truancy.
Essentially, they had to earn “the privilege to play.”
“We want student-athletes that are humble to learn and grow through
adversity and success on and off the field,” coaches wrote in a letter
passed out Saturday and obtained by the Deseret News. “We want a team
that others want to associate themselves with and support; winning
isn't the most important criteria for that to happen.”
The uplifting letter also listed five things each player must fulfill
if they want to rejoin the team, which represents the small city of
Roosevelt: They have to make an effort to attend every practice; be on
time; receive no F’s or disciplinary problems in class; do an
individual service project that helps their families; and memorize a
quote about good character — and recite it to a coach.
Union High School’s football team suffered a 40-16 loss at their last
game — but that wasn’t what drive the coaches to bench the entire team.
The expectations shocked some of the kids — and the idea that there
could be no more football left some of them in tears.
“When they said we’re going to turn our jerseys in, I thought, ‘Oh,
I’ve never been cut.’ I figured we’d just been cut. There were no more
games. I was sad,” junior Jordan Gurr told the Deseret News.
But Labrum was adamant that his boys needed to refocus...
Read the rest of this amazing story at New York News
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