High school and college football is a religion in Alabama. There
are only two seasons: football season and talking about the next
football season. So successful at winning football games, Hoover
High School head coach Rush Propst has been a saint to many.
Hoover is a growing affluent suburb of Birmingham, and Hoover
High School is the older of two public high schools there. Hoover
won four straight state championships from 2002 to 2005. In
national rankings of elite high school football teams, the Hoover
Buccaneers have been ranked as high as fourth. A number of former
Hoover stars play on college teams now and a few have made it to
the National Football League.
Due in part to this success, MTV aired two seasons of
“Two-a-Days,” a documentary series focusing on Propst, Hoover
players and their friends both on and off the football field. Think
“Friday Night Lights” with real people, not actors. Requests for
Hoover Buccaneer paraphernalia poured in from all over the country.
Hoover’s game with elite John Curtis High School of metropolitan
New Orleans was televised nationally on ESPN’s high school sports
network.
Now Propst has apparently fallen from sainthood. In addition to
forfeiting four games this year for using an ineligible transfer
player, Propst abruptly resigned the coaching job he took in 1999.
However, he said that he should remain Hoover’s head coach
throughout the 2007 high school playoffs and then be an
administrator paid his approximately $101,000 annual salary until
the end of August 2008. Although the average teacher in Alabama
makes about $40,000 per year, the Hoover School Board has often
caved in to Propst and granted this request. They also agreed to
give Propst a $141,000 annuity when he leaves.
What did Propst do to land in such hot water? Allegations
include grade-changing for academically-challenged football players
and spying on their rival Vestavia Hills Rebels at practice. Propst
boosters tend to blame the charges on fans of the other Hoover high
school, the younger Spain Park, which is not nearly as talented in
football, and view the minority of school board members that does
not want Propst to coach any more Buccaneer games as Spain Park
Jaguar partisans.
Spain Park, however, has had nothing to do with Propst’s major
public transgression, however; he has fathered three children out
of wedlock in another town. He denies being romantically involved
with a current Hoover assistant principal. So far there has been no
comment from Tammy Propst or the couple’s children in Hoover.
In tearful testimony to the Hoover school board, Propst admitted
that he had made mistakes. However, he blamed the charge of
grade-changing on a principal who got the boot this summer and a
zealous assistant coach. He blamed another assistant coach for
spying on the rival. Propst portrayed himself as the victim of
turmoil, noting there have been three Hoover school
superintendents, six Hoover high school principals and three Hoover
mayors in eight years, as if he and his boosters had nothing to do
with any of this.
When “Two-A-Days” aired, Propst apologized repeatedly for using
salty language on the program. Apparently, swearing on MTV was the
least of his transgressions.
