Commentary: High School Track Coach Fired After Going Scorched Earth on Decision To Force Masks on Competing Teen Athletes

In a pandering display of wokeness from yet another school attempting to get on culture’s good side, New Hampshire track and field coach Bradley Keyes was fired after he had his fill of leftist nonsensical policies.

Keyes told WBZ-TV he was informed that athletes attending Pembroke Academy in New Hampshire would be required to wear masks during most field events and all races throughout the upcoming spring season, based on guidelines set by the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association.

The outlet reported that in an April 3 blog post, the coach encouraged his readers to reach out to the school to combat the “senseless, irrational, cowardice b***s***” that threatened his student-athletes.

Keyes shared an email in the blog post that he reportedly sent to the school’s athletics director, Fred Vezina, writing, “I’ll come straight to the point. I will not put kids on the track and tell them to run any races while wearing masks.”

“I will not stand up in front of the kids and lie to them and tell them that these masks are doing anything worthwhile out in an open field with wind blowing and the sun shining,” the four-year coach added in the email.

His athletes told WBZ that they were concerned about their performance in the upcoming season with the new masking guidelines — as track and field events, of course, require an abundance of oxygen.

“It gets you really tired especially when it gets up to 80 degrees soon and it’s going to be really hard for us to keep doing what we live to do,” one track team member, David Testerman, said.

Keyes was at a loss to understand why masks were necessary for the wide-open outdoors.

“These insane policies are robbing kids of once in a lifetime opportunities for no valid reason other than irrational fears and going along with the sheep,” he wrote to the athletics director.

“Fire me if you must,” Keyes concluded in the email.

The coach’s blog posting was updated on Monday morning with devastating, but frankly all-too-predictable, news.

“I have been fired,” Keyes wrote. “I am not surprised. I made my choice to speak out. They made theirs.”

Keyes is not the first employee to be fired for speaking his mind regarding absurd restrictions enforced during the COVID-19 pandemic — and he certainly won’t be the last.

During a time when vaccines are becoming readily available to everyone, COVID deaths are fairly steadily dropping throughout the U.S. and even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is saying it is safe for schools to reopen, it’s ridiculous for those in charge to continue to enforce arbitrary rules simply for the sake of appearing woke.

But, as Keyes so astutely noted, it is not at all shocking.

Some of our nation’s top scientific minds are still harping on these nonsensical orders. The director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has been repeatedly slammed in recent months (most notably by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky) for his recommendation that people wear two masks — even after they have been vaccinated.

Masking has become so politically charged that even being seen once without one can earn you a one-way ticket to being canceled, regardless of the circumstances. This is, of course, not to say that masks are never useful or that wearing a mask has absolutely no merit. However, in this case, it appears the health of the students was not the top priority.

In an interview with Fox News‘ Tucker Carlson on Friday, Keyes explained why the school’s decree was so illogical — particularly when it comes to track and field athletes who operate primarily outdoors.

“Everything has to come through the fabric. It takes extremely exhausting races and makes them significantly worse,” Keyes said.

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“Then I got thinking about what’s happening with any particles that are coming off the masks. What are you actually breathing into your lungs over and over again? I got even more concerned about the possible health effects.”

Keyes is not worried about the financial aspect of being fired, as he explained to Carlson that he holds a full-time job elsewhere. For him, it’s about the kids and what these rules are communicating to them.

“One of the fundamental parts of all of this is learning to play by the rules. The rules supposedly put in place in order to create a fair and level playing field, to let everyone know what is expected and allowed, and then to let the best man, woman, or team win,” the coach wrote in his blog post.

“Except now we are adding arbitrary, senseless, ill-thought rules.”

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.