Lions BB Team Says Coach’s Firing Has Killed Their Will to Play
Parents of members of the Franklin County Lions Baseball team are expected to voice their opposition tonight of the firing of baseball coach Brent Honeywell.
Honeywell was told recently he would not be returning next year as the high school baseball coach amid allegations of possible bullying during an off campus event in which team members drank a non-alcoholic mixture of tobasco sauce, mustard and other ingredients.
Parents call the firing unfair and the allegations unreasonable.
” ” Drew Davis (left front) and other Lions Baseball Team members address Franklin BOE Thursday on coach firing
At the Franklin County Board of Education work session last Thursday, members of the team voiced their opposition to the Honeywell’s firing.
Drew Davis graduated last year and played on the team.
Davis said the coach is like a second father for many of the team members and without him, they likely would not have gotten into college.
“I played for him. I was there,” said Davis. “It’s not the fact that he was my coach. It’s that he called school after school trying to get me in. All of the seniors who had played four years, he got us all in.”
Davis’ younger brother Aubrey is a freshman ball player. He said the coach took him and other player, sat his own expense, to colleges in Tennessee so coaches could see their talents .
All of the team members said the drink incident under question was not hazing or bullying, but was voluntary and no member had to drink it.
Davis said drinking the concoction is a team tradition started well before coach Honeywell took over and parents were at the restaurant when the drink was passed around.
“It’s not a ‘you have to do it.’ We need to make that clear. People do it their first year on varsity because people before them done it,” Davis said. “It’s fun, man.”
The team is in the running for the state playoffs with seven games left in their season.
Senior Wesley Bryson is a catcher on the team. Bryson told the board Thursday Honeywell enforces a strict code of conduct and he said the removal of Honeywell as their coach has taken the spirit out of the team and they no longer want to finish the season.
“Whether y’all realize it or not, it’s really affected us on this team,” he said. “We can’t play ball the way we want to play, we can’t think right.’
Honeywell as been the Franklin County High School baseball coach since 2008.
The board listened to the team members Thursday, but made no comment. So far, no replacement for Honeywell has been announced.
Tonight’s regular board meeting takes place tonight at the administrative office on Busha Road in Carneville and begins at 6p.