A high school football coach in Simi Valley has been dismissed after a school surveillance video showed him kicking a football that struck a student-athlete in the groin during a recent practice.
Coach fired after video emerges
Because of the potential injury risk, he explained that he had become angry after watching one player aggressively bring a running back to the ground during a drill, which he said was against the team’s practice rules. Video captured by a camera on the school campus appears to show Brubaker visibly frustrated as he approached a player. He then kicked a nearby football, which struck another student in the groin and sent the player to the ground in pain. “I feel obviously a great deal of remorse for what happened. It’s a one in a million shot. Brubaker maintained that the incident was accidental and insisted that he never intended to hit the player. The footage also appears to show several other adults rushing toward the player and confronting Brubaker while the student received attention.
The Simi Valley Unified School District reviewed the footage and subsequently fired Adam Brubaker as head football coach at Royal High School, according to Eyewitness News. “I kicked the ball and it hit him in the groin area and instantly I felt like I was going to pass out,” Brubaker told Eyewitness News. Brubaker reiterated that he was not trying to kick the player and said he later approached him after practice to apologize.
His dismissal came only hours before Royal was scheduled to open its season on Friday.
