High school football coaches have been fired for all sorts of reasons, but this may be a first.
According to Dave Campbell Texas Football's Matt Stepp, North Crowley High School head coach Eugene Rogers has been fired, at least in part, for holding a Signing Day ceremony for a player who was actually a preferred walk-on.
I spoke with Rogers on Wednesday afternoon. Here is the relevant portion of the reassignment letter verbatim as he dictated it to me over the phone: "This reassignment is due to a pattern of poor judgment and the allegation of your conscious misrepresentation of facts regarding a student-athlete's college signing."
Rogers, 51, was a member of the first football staff after North Crowley's 1998 opening, and in 2003 he helped the school win a state championship as defensive coordinator. He returned to the Fort Worth-area school as head coach in 2013, according to his LinkedIn profile, until he was let go this week.
North Crowley went 4-6 this season and 2-5 in District 4-6A.
When asked if he thought the Signing Day ceremony was an ulterior motive to remove him as a head coach for poor performance, Rogers told FootballScoop, "I can handle the truth. You don't have to sugarcoat it. If someone doesn't want me, I can handle it. I don't have concrete evidence why they decided to go in a different direction. If it is for wins and losses, I'll move forward and do what I need to do."
Rogers says he wants to continue coaching but, after 20 years moving around Texas to advance his career, he says his next coaching stop will be a secondary consideration as he supports his wife's pursuit of a high school principal position.