A pair of Alabama high school football coaches have stepped down from their jobs after videos of team staffers behaving inappropriately with players began circulating online.
The head coach and defensive coordinator of Hoover High School resigned this week, the school district announced during a Thursday board meeting, according to WBRC.
Drew Gilmer, the head coach, and Adam Helms were initially placed on leave on Tuesday after disturbing practice footage surfaced on social media, with one video showing a coach ripping the helmet off of a player before another coach thrusted his hips in the player’s face.
A second shocking video shows a coach charging at a player before ripping off another high schooler’s helmet and throwing it, causing him to fall to the ground:
The Hoover City School System has not publicly confirmed the identities of the coaches seen in the video, though the superintendent acknowledged the incidents in a statement to the outlet: “The past few days have been extremely unsettling for many of our varsity football players, coaches, and the overall Hoover Community. The safety and well-being of our students and staff continue to be our top priorities.”
We maintain high expectations for our employees and students. At this time, our focus is dedicated to supporting our football players and coaching staff.
Alabama State Rep. Juandalyn Givan (D) is an attorney representing the family of one of the students seen in the videos and identified Gilmer as one of the coaches who committed the inappropriate acts.
“We are here as legal counsel for a family whose 17-year-old child has been subjected to an experience no child should ever go through, regardless of if it’s on the field of play,” Givan told reporters at a press conference this week.
The lawmaker continued:
As you know, a video has gone viral depicting acts by the Hoover High School head football coach Drew Gilmer. The acts committed by Gilmer are pervasive, perverted, abusive, extreme, outrageous, and beyond all possible bounds of human decency from someone who is deemed or defined as an educator in the public school system in the state of Alabama.
She went on to say that the family of the teen is prepared to “pursue every legal avenue” and that “this has nothing to do with [Gilmer] being a good coach.”
Rather, “it has everything to do with what was depicted on the video, in an instance, that left pause and concern… not just in Alabama, but throughout the sports industry as a whole,” Givan told reporters.
“We’ve seen and we know the levels of contact coaches have, but in an instance that a coach takes a player’s head, a child, grabs it and pulls it to his private area, something is wrong with that,” she added. “That goes beyond a level of just the regular whatever.”
The Hoover Police Department said the Special Victims Unit has opened an investigation into the matter.
Givan also said that the student she is representing was just 16 at the time of the video.
“Outstanding young man. He’s clear on what he wants his future to be. He is dealing with a situation that has him emotionally distraught,” another attorney, Reginald McDaniel, said at the press conference. “As you can imagine, the attention this is getting is having a major impact on his emotional state and mind. At this point, he’s becoming withdrawn. He has been humiliated.”
“Imagine your 16-year-old kid being subjected to that kind of humiliation by a grown man who is supposed to be in a position of trust. His state of mind right now is not well. He’s probably going to need counseling,” McDaniel continued. “He’s looking into that. We ask that the public understand what this kid is going through and pray for him that he will be able to get over this. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
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