After years of fighting, a praying football coach got his job back. Now he's unsure he wants it

An assistant high school football coach in Washington state who lost his job during a controversy over his public post-game prayers is back on the sideline after the U.S. Supreme Court held that his practice was protected by the Constitution.

An assistant high school football coach in Washington state who lost his job during a controversy over his public post-game prayers is back on the sideline after the U.S. Supreme Court held that his practice was protected by the Constitution.

But after fighting to be rehired for seven years, Joe Kennedy isn't sure he wants it anymore, and the thought of kneeling in the spotlight again makes him queasy.

On Friday night, he is due to coach his first game since 2015, when he last pressed his knee to the turf at Bremerton High School's Memorial Stadium. Everyone will be watching for him to pray again, he said.

"Knowing that everybody's expecting me to go do this kind of gives me a lot of angst in my stomach," said Kennedy, standing near midfield, where he intends to kneel when the game clock expires Friday. "People are going to freak out that I'm bringing God back into public schools."

After asking Kennedy to keep any on-field praying non-demonstrative or apart from students, the school district placed him on leave and eventually declined to renew his contract. Officials said they were concerned that tolerating Kennedy's public post-game prayers would suggest government endorsement of religion, in violation of the separation of church and state.

Kennedy's fight to get his job back quickly became a cultural touchstone, pitting the religious liberties of government employees against longstanding principles protecting students from religious coercion.

He lost at every court level until the merits of his case reached the U.S. Supreme Court last year. The conservative majority sided with him, with Justice Neil Gorsuch writing "the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike."