Reinstate Coach Huffman

We the undersigned Parents, students and supporters of Coach Huffman, call upon the District 49 Board of Education to reinstate Coach Huffman as the Head Coach of the Vista Ridge Football Program.

We believe Coach Huffman displays a genuine interest in the athletes he coaches, his meticulous attention for detail of play execution is an example of passions and pursuit of perfection that sets an example for our kids that will serve them for the rest of their lives, his commitment to the game and winning instills a characteristic of competitiveness that will serve our children all their lives, his involvement and commitment to the kids before they are even able to play for him at the High School level (as many of you know he is actively involved at the middle school level) shows our children that great things happen from long term commitment . We believe Coach Huffman's "coaching philosophy" to be most beneficial to our athletes and that it exemplifies the characteristics of a "winning" program through hard work and dedication.

In complete contrast to the statements above we see nothing in Mr. Grose's and Mr. Felice's handling of this decision, responses and statements at the meeting as to why they terminated Coach Huffaman that instills any confidence in what their "philosophy" for our football program would be. Their decision seemed to me "very poorly thought through", they were inadequately prepared to answer questions about the future of the program, expected support from players and parents "as if by virtue of position only" they were "entitled" to that support. Further in their "press release" regarding this matter they offered the reasoning they stated "they have decided to take our student athletes in a different direction" but made no mention about what that direction would be and to the best of my knowledge with no regard from parents and students as to their thoughts on how the current program was running? Our biggest concern for this, is the message it sends our athletes and students! They have taken a program that was headed by someone with a winning track record and a huge sense of pride in school and athletics and replaced it with "poorly planned and executed decision making, inadequate due diligence on long term planning, indifference and insensitivity to the student athletes that this decision affects the most and no plan they will stand behind publicly for the future of our children in this program.