Hank Berrien

A New Hampshire high school track and field coach was fired after refusing to tell his team they had to wear masks when they competed.

Pembroke Academy track and field coach Bradley Keyes, who coached at Pembroke for four years but was not a teacher there, asked the school if the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association’s guidelines requiring masks were guidance or a mandate. Informed that Pembroke and fellow competing schools agreed with the policy, on Saturday Keyes issued a blog post encouraging others to tell the school they opposed the policy, while adding an email he sent to the school’s athletic director that stated:

I’ll come straight to the point. I will not put kids on the track and tell them to run any races while wearing masks. I will not stand up in front of the kids and lie to them and tell them that these masks are doing anything worthwhile out in an open field with wind blowing and the sun shining. These insane policies are robbing kids of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for no valid reason other than irrational fears and going along with the sheep.  … Fire me if you must.