BREMERTON — Moments after the Bremerton High School football team shook hands following its season-opening football win Friday night at Memorial Stadium, assistant coach Joe Kennedy walked to the 50-yard line and prayed.
By himself, he knelt at the center of the 50-yard line for a quick prayer, which was followed by some scattered applause from the stands.
The moment came eight years after Kennedy lost his job for doing the same thing. He was back with the team after winning a lawsuit against the Bremerton School District that reached the Supreme Court last year.
“Tonight was the milestone of where we wanted to get to for eight years,” Joe Kennedy said after the game with his wife, Denise, at his side. “What we asked for from the Supreme Court and all the courts was just to be able to be a coach and to be able to pray after a football game. Both of those were accomplished. I’ve gotten what I’ve asked for. Anything beyond that is just a plus.”
Kennedy’s return was why this was no ordinary season opener for the Bremerton football team, at least before the start of the game.
That was clear from the TV cameras set up outside the stadium and the couple hundred people lined up at the ticket booth more than 90 minutes before game time.
No doubt, players and local fans were excited to start the season, but much of the focus was on Kennedy.
In 2015, the school feared Kennedy’s praying violated the Constitution’s establishment clause, prohibiting a government-established religion, and his contract wasn’t renewed.
Kennedy fought his dismissal for years, arguing that his praying was private speech protected by the First Amendment right to free speech and the free exercise of religion.
The Supreme Court ruled on June 27, 2022, that Kennedy’s prayers were protected by free speech and exercise clauses, provided that the coach didn’t coerce anyone to participate.
That decision set up Friday night’s return to the field for Kennedy, who now lives in Florida and returned as an assistant coach.
Emblematic of this not being a typical game was a media tent that opened two hours before the game for check-in. Media outnumbered fans from opponent Mount Douglas Secondary outside Victoria, B.C.
There was a visible security force, with law enforcement from two agencies plus private security guards on hand.
When an usher at the gate was asked if it was unusual to have such a crowd gathered to buy tickets long before the start of the game, she sarcastically said, “Do you think?”
Kennedy walked on the field shortly after 5 p.m. to no reaction as fans were just coming in.
The large media throng was certainly unusual, and the Bremerton side of the stands was nearly full, but other than that the game seemed pretty typical.
Four people serving in the military were honored beforehand as part of Military Night festivities, but there was no mention of Kennedy’s return.
The crowd was a little larger than typical for a Bremerton home game, according to a local reporter. There were plenty of seats available on the visitors’ side, even with overflow Bremerton fans coming over.
An official estimated there were 1,300 to 1,400 people in attendance.
At halftime, while the rest of the Bremerton coaches and players went straight to the locker room, Kennedy stayed behind, shaking hands and talking to some fans before finally joining the team.
He watched Bremerton pull away from a 6-6 tie at halftime for a 27-12 win.
And then he prayed.
“I said thank you probably 30 times; I had no other words,” Kennedy said. “What do you say to the one who got me here to begin with? It was just thank you. I had nothing else to say to him.”
He said he was “terrified” beforehand how it might go Friday.
“I had no idea what was going to go on tonight,” he said. “I didn’t know how many people were going to show up. An answered prayer was that there wasn’t 10,000 people. It was the right amount of people. Great crowd. You heard nothing but cheers for Bremerton the whole time.“
Kennedy said after the game that he plans on being at Bremerton’s football practice Monday. He was making no commitments beyond that.
“We are going to let God direct us and our family direct us,” he said.
Information from Seattle Times staff reporter Nina Shapiro is included in this report.
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