Just over a week removed from the CIF Championship games and we already have four coaches who have resigned from their respective jobs.

The biggest of these has to be Terry Henigan retiring from Irvine High School after coaching there for 29 years. Until this year, Henigan had been the only large school coach to win a CIF Championship outright for three consecutive seasons (John Barnes won three straight with Los Alamitos, but split the second title with Esperanza after a 14-14 tie).  This year, La Habra and head coach Frank Mazzotta achieved that feat after beating Trabuco Hills 21-0 for its third consecutive title.

Henigan leaves the program with 218 career coaching wins, good for a tie for sixth all-time in Orange County history. He also leaves behind a superior running back in DaVonte Young, who will only be a sophomore, but I have heard from one source that he could possibly be moving to another school…

The second, and most talked about resignation so far, is Mike Jacot leaving the Santa Margarita program and becoming its first ever Strength and Conditioning Coordinator. This recent vacancy does carry some buzz as it is reported that Bob Johnson (head coach at Mission Viejo) will not rule out the possibility of applying for the job. Jacot finished with a 38-38 record during his tenure at Santa Margarita.

The other two resignations come from the South Coast League. Chi Chi Biehn resigned as Capistrano Valley High head coach after compiling a 30-41-1 record in seven seasons with the Cougars. Also, Aliso Niguel will be looking for a new head coach as Jeff Veeder resigned after five seasons and a record of 18-34, which is not so much a reflection on him as it is the fact that they moved into a much tougher league.

In Veeder’s first season with Alison Niguel in the Sea View League, his team finished 9-3 overall with a 4-1 league record. Once they moved to the South Coast League (Mission Viejo, San Clemente, Dana Hills, Tesoro, Capo Valley), they began to slip and now have an active 16-game league losing streak.

It will be interesting to see which coaches go where as well as to see what they will bring to the table for these schools. If Johnson does end up leaving Mission Viejo and jumping on board with Santa Margarita, look for them to be right back in the thick of the Trinity League race within the next few years.

Okay, so when I was a fundamentalist high school student, sure, I felt like I was an oppressed minority. This is the nature of fundamentalism, you think that your group (no matter how big) is a small minority facing attacks from all sides. So, all comments, especially from authority figures, are subject to this filter that is actively searching for “Anti-Christian” attacks. Now, I don’t know if this kid is actually a fundamentalist, but he and his parents seem to at least be acting with this “minoritized” suspicion.

A LA Times article reports an ongoing story at Capistrano Valley High in Orange County, noting that 16 year-old Chad Farnan, along with his parents, “filed a lawsuit alleging that [James] Corbett[, an Advanced Placement European history teacher,] had violated the student’s constitutional rights by making ‘highly inappropriate’ and offensive statements in class regarding Christianity.” What were the allegedly offensive statements?

At the heart of the Farnans’ lawsuit is a tape recording from what they said is a class lesson Corbett taught Oct. 19. The lawsuit notes that Corbett told students that “when you put on your Jesus glasses, you can’t see the truth,” and that religion is not “connected with morality.”

Hmmm. Well, perhaps the teacher could benefit from using a little more sensitivity and, well, precision in his comments. Unfortunately, we don’t have a transcript of what he was talking about, but as one perceptive supporter of the teacher points out in the article: “It’s hard to teach European history without being somewhat critical of organized religion. But aren’t we supposed to learn from our mistakes? Isn’t that why we study history?” The article also references a Quaker student and an Irish Roman Catholic student who have not been offended by any the history teacher’s remarks. The Catholic student adds: “For hundreds of years the church was corrupt, and that has to be discussed.”

I can certainly imagine a context in which the teacher is raising legitimate concerns about corruption in the religious institutions of European history. For example, let’s say that part of the lesson for the day is this: The state churches of Europe were not interested in worshiping God, but rather protecting their power. For the religious institution, religion was not “connected with morality.” Many Christians today don’t recognize the corruption of the church’s past because they are trying to see church history through rose-colored glasses. But we have to recognize the truth of history and “when you put on your Jesus glasses, you can’t see the truth.”

This is the context within which I imagine the teacher giving his comments. Like I mentioned, he probably could have been a little more careful about the way he made the comments, but if he said something like I imagine, then he’s raising a valid point about ideological presuppositions when studying history. It seems to me that an Advanced Placement course should address the issue of preconceived notions in historical investigation.

The article highlights the 300 or so supports outside the school rallying on behalf of the teacher, Dr. Corbett. They have cool signs like, “Who would Jesus sue?” I like that one. They also talk about a Southern Baptist pastor, Wiley S. Drake, in the crowd recording interviews with the supporters for his Internet radio show. Drake is a guy, by the way, who has called his own supporters to pray for his critics to die (see here too–so much for Jesus asking us to love our “enemies”). His comments for the LA Times article are entirely in line with the attitude I mention at the beginning of this post: “I’m tired of being criticized and ostracized for being a Christian. I’m glad Chad filed his suit. It’s time we Christians fought back.”

It’s this “fighting” mentality that leads this situation in to a frenzied circus. I don’t know the context, so I’m like every other observer, but I would think that a civil conversation with the teacher would do the trick. I’m not proud of the fact that I was a creationist in high school, but a friend and I raised concerns with my high school psychology teacher about how she talked about evolution “as if it were fact” (those were my words at the time). She told us that she had thought about the issue of creationism and was sensitive to our concerns. She just didn’t see the evidence for creationism, but she’d be willing to take a look at any evidence we might have had. No law suit. Just a conversation. And it worked out okay. And I changed my mind when I got to college anyway, so I completely agree with her now.

I know that it’s tempting to see the world against you as a Christian high schooler at a public school, but honestly, I’d hope that a Christian school would give you the same kind of critical reflection on the history of the church. Christians shouldn’t feel they have to defend all the despicable acts of Christian history. I can only hope that the fever dies down and conservative Christians start to see that “fighting” is not as productive as conversing. Who knows, people might actually learn something from the conversation.

Update (12/23/07): See some reflections on this article and my post over at if i were a bell, i’d ring.

Update (12/28/07): See this editorial at the LA Times.

SCROOGE ALERT LEVEL HIGH

It can’t be made anymore clearer than in his own comments. Capistrano Valley High School history teacher James Corbett hates all things conservative and Christian.

Please stay tuned. This is a BREAKING SCROOGE ALERT – LEVEL HIGH.

Teacher’s comments recorded by student:

How do you get the peasants to oppose something that is in their best interest? Religion. You have to have something that is irrational to counter that rational approach. When you put on your Jesus glasses, you can’t see the truth.

Conservatives don’t want women to avoid pregnancies. That’s interfering with God’s work. You’ve got to stay pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen and have babies until your body collapses.

And that’s the news. That’s not O’Reilly and Hannity. Those people are just liars.

This from the OC Register:

MISSION VIEJO – To an almost continuous stream of blaring car horns and cheering, more than 200 Capistrano Valley High School students and alumni rallied outside their school this morning to show support for embattled history teacher James Corbett, who is being sued by one of his students for making remarks about Christianity and traditional Christian viewpoints in class.

Under the early-morning drizzle, the protesters lined both sides of Via Escolar outside the Mission Viejo high school, holding up handmade posters with messages that read “Honk 4 Corbett,” “Keep Corbett” and “Alums for Corbett.”

Corbett was the target of a lawsuit filed last week by sophomore Chad Farnan, who alleged that the 19-year Capistrano Valley High history teacher made anti-religion remarks in his advanced placement European history class this semester…

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