Former Recruit, Deyvid Palepale, Removed from HS Team
Former Michigan target who took a visit and we received crystal balls for over the summer was removed from his high school team for the post below over the weekend. Palepale eventually committed to USC over Michigan and Penn State in July.
I live in his school district and coach at a nearby district. Hempfield, Palepale's school, had a great season last year with their head coach being named coach of the year. Hempfield is currently 2-5 this season. Many more negative rumors are currently swirling about this situation. One has to wonder what USC's response to this will be.
We constantly remind our players on the team I coach about the power social media can have. It is unfortunate it takes a situation like this to make a point known.
October 11th, 2023 at 3:15 PM ^
Given the intro, I was expecting something a thousand times worse, tbh
October 11th, 2023 at 3:29 PM ^
No shit. And after reading a bit about his team this year it would appear he's right.
October 11th, 2023 at 3:35 PM ^
Guessing he was kicked off for suggesting his coach should be sacked, not saying the team sucked. Can’t criticize your coach in high school - I learned the same lesson.
October 11th, 2023 at 3:43 PM ^
No…that’s the parents job lol.
October 11th, 2023 at 3:48 PM ^
Or in college, so that lesson should be learned early. You can't really criticize your boss publicly, either. Come to think of it, people should just keep it all to themselves.
October 11th, 2023 at 3:51 PM ^
Unless you are Justin Fields.
October 11th, 2023 at 4:06 PM ^
But if you're making more money than your boss, are they really your boss?
(These are NFL contracts, so the real numbers are fuzzy, but Justin Fields' contract averages out to $4.7m per year, while Matt Eberflus reportedly makes $4.5m per year.)
October 11th, 2023 at 10:19 PM ^
You can criticize your boss. Ass kissers get the promotions though. And all of my high school football coaches were complete cunts.
October 11th, 2023 at 3:44 PM ^
You don’t have to respect your boss, but badmouthing your boss in public will get you fired pretty much every time.
More to the point, a football player is almost certain to play for a bad coach at some point in their career. Gotta learn how to keep any gripes inside the locker room
October 11th, 2023 at 10:24 PM ^
It's definitely not a great idea to publicly bash your team/coach on social media. But I feel like it calls more for a 1-2 game benching. Kicking the guy off the team - if this is all he did - seems pretty harsh.
October 11th, 2023 at 5:15 PM ^
He is a defensive player going to USC. Get use to sucking.
October 11th, 2023 at 5:15 PM ^
Seriously! That's pretty tame based on what I was expecting. I'm sure there's a number of people on our current roster that could've tweeted that same thing in 2020 and many on this board felt the same way.
October 11th, 2023 at 8:54 PM ^
Key word: could've
October 12th, 2023 at 1:00 AM ^
I bet a lot of the guys playing for Cristobal realized this week that their HS head coaches weren't that bad.
October 11th, 2023 at 3:16 PM ^
Kicked off the team for that? Come on. That should be a teaching moment, not a ban that seriously jeopardizes his football future. Ridiculous.
October 11th, 2023 at 3:21 PM ^
That was my immediate reaction to all of this. However, I have been hearing there are some other issues going on behind the scenes that have not been shared. Just out of respect for the situation, I only wanted to share information that has been reported on by legitimate media members.
October 11th, 2023 at 3:36 PM ^
A player on our local varsity team would immediately be off the team for that. So i am not sure why you, or anyone else, would be surprised. Maybe the standards at our local high school are higher?
October 11th, 2023 at 3:50 PM ^
Be more white
October 12th, 2023 at 12:00 AM ^
WTF does that even mean?
October 12th, 2023 at 6:08 AM ^
Be more dumb
October 11th, 2023 at 4:03 PM ^
Or maybe your "local varsity team" is a podunk outfit.
October 11th, 2023 at 5:02 PM ^
Absolutely booting a kid for that in middle of season. That type of stuff is exactly why they are having a shitty year. My guess is that the kids are acting like huge D Bags too
October 11th, 2023 at 3:18 PM ^
In other news, Hempfield is preparing for a First Amendment lawsuit from a student and former football player.
October 11th, 2023 at 3:47 PM ^
Why?
You can say a lot of things legally that would still warrant removal from the team.
This seems to be one in my opinion. This could also likely be cumulative.
You can’t go to the dark side even if you are the Admiral.
October 11th, 2023 at 4:18 PM ^
You can also file lawsuits for a lot of reasons. I wouldn't be surprised to see one here, where a public school district employee punished a student for protected speech off-campus.
Obviously we're not privy to other details, so maybe this kid also did something that would justify getting kicked off the team. IMO, this doesn't, so we're at logger-heads.
October 11th, 2023 at 8:44 PM ^
you are at loggerheads. You are the only one saying it.
October 11th, 2023 at 9:18 PM ^
Check the case law, and see that you're wrong.
October 11th, 2023 at 3:50 PM ^
The First Amendment doesn't prevent players from being removed from a team that they publicly called for their coach to be fired.
October 11th, 2023 at 4:14 PM ^
It protects against retaliation by public institutions for protected speech.
Edit: This is literally the point of the right, you statist simps.
October 11th, 2023 at 5:02 PM ^
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I read this a bunch and couldn’t find where griping about your coach online is mentioned. maybe you can show me where?
the amount of people constantly yelling about the 1st amendment on the interwebz, while simultaneously having zero understanding of it, is incredible.
October 11th, 2023 at 5:32 PM ^
If you don't know that First Amendment law goes way beyond the literal text of the original amendment, which has since been extended by other amendments and by Supreme Court precedent, I don't think you're the right person to accuse others of having zero understanding of the topic.
October 11th, 2023 at 8:44 PM ^
Isn't it meant to protect you from being jailed for saying things. Doesn't mean you can't be fined, suspended or even fired.
October 12th, 2023 at 10:32 AM ^
Actually - it generally means you can't be fined, suspended, or fired BY THE GOVERNMENT.
You work for Microsoft and they want to fire you for campaigning for Debbie Stabenow in your off hours? 100% legal.
You work for the local public school district and they want to fire you for campaigning for Debbie Stabenow in your off hours? 100% a 1st amendment violation.
October 11th, 2023 at 9:10 PM ^
About criticizing coaches and the first amendment...There's the cheerleader who the Supreme Court said couldn't be suspended from the squad for saying "fuck cheer, fuck this school" on social media after not making varsity (link). For the record, I thought it was a bullshit ruling. She wasn't suspended from school, just an extracurricular activity.
Edit: oops. Jack Be Nimble beat me to it.
October 11th, 2023 at 6:23 PM ^
Was he kicked out of school? No. He was removed from an extracurricular activity, which are a privilege and not a right.
October 11th, 2023 at 9:51 PM ^
It protects against retaliation by public institutions for protected speech.
Obligatory IANAL, but.... that's certainly a take.
October 11th, 2023 at 4:25 PM ^
I don't know how you can know this. Can you cite binding case law supporting your claim? Or do you just mean, in your opinion it shouldn't prevent it? Which is fine — but I hope you recognize the difference.
October 11th, 2023 at 5:15 PM ^
If a student stood up in class and said, “Fuck you” to the teacher, is that considered free speech? If the school suspended him, are they taking away his First Amendment rights?
October 11th, 2023 at 5:56 PM ^
In fact, there is a First Amendment test for both this hypothetical situation and Mr. Palepale's current situation. It is called the substantial disruption test or the Tinker test from the case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District.
The answer to your hypothetical question is no, teachers are permitted to prevent substantial disruptions of their classrooms by restricting student speech along certain lines. I think Mr. Palepale's case is a closer one though.
There is, for instance, an analogous recent Supreme Court case where the Court sided with a cheerleader who got suspended from the JV team after posting some stuff on social media.
October 12th, 2023 at 10:02 AM ^
I'd love to know what else would be considered protected speech in a classroom situation, and how the Tinker test would play out in those scenarios. Interesting subject.
October 13th, 2023 at 1:37 PM ^
Yeah, the cheerleader case is pretty instructive in this instance. If this tweet is the only justification for his suspension, he probably has a good case. First Amendment law is very complex and, if you read the opinion linked above, it is very fact-specific. One, if he tweeted it out during non-school hours, then he is less likely to fall under school disciplinary measures. Also, like the cheerleader, his speech was vulgar-ish, but didn't venture into obscenity, fighting words, etc. Finally, unpopular speech is specifically protected by the First Amendment, so it takes a pretty compelling interest in overcoming its protection.
With that being said, if this tweet was accompanied by insubordination on the field or in the locker room, then the school has a much stronger case. Then they can argue that his conduct was occurring when the school had disciplinary responsibilities. They can also argue that football is a violent contact sport and players that create unnecessary distractions place them and their teammates in danger.
October 11th, 2023 at 3:19 PM ^
A funnier journalist would have written, “Deyvid Palepale has been kickedkicked offoff the teamteam…”
October 11th, 2023 at 5:44 PM ^
HAHA!
October 11th, 2023 at 3:20 PM ^
That seems seriously weak if they booted him for that. He's not even lying and censored his curse. WTF?
October 11th, 2023 at 3:21 PM ^
Rumor has it that he will be decommitting from USC and will sign with MSU as they promised to name him captain.
October 11th, 2023 at 3:45 PM ^
I think you got that wrong; I understand MSU wants to take the coach.
October 11th, 2023 at 4:47 PM ^
Only if he demonstrates that he can single-handedly destroy a season.
