Ray Coufus

Artwork by Tom Smith

**Raymond "Ray" Coufus** (Ronnie Adrian) is the former principal of Hamilton High School and the guest on Season 1, Episode 3 of the Teacher's Lounge.

Ray is very pale and, during his time at Hamilton High School, was a rather slight man, but he has put on a considerable amount of muscle since that time. However, despite being a small man, the students would often call him "fat eyebrows" and "fat body" in a successful attempt to mess with him mentally. Ray is constantly lathering his whole body, including his clothes, in baby oil. He keeps many karate gis in his Ford Avalanche at all times in case the gi he's wearing gets ruined by the baby oil. He will also use the old gis to clean his truck.

As principal, Mr. Coufus brought several positive changes to the school. It was under Mr. Coufus that Hamilton High School got both it's computer labs as he fought for two years to repeal the Hamilton's "no electronics" policy (culminating in a literal fight with the female superintendent). Additionally, Ray had a boxing ring installed in the school. Ray also made it a rule that all the teachers at Hamilton had to be adults who had gone to school and knew things about the subjects they taught.

Ray was disgraced and ultimately fired for an incident that took place during the setup for the Under the Sea themed prom (3 years before his podcast appearance). The incident in question was a fistfight between Ray and multiple Hamilton High School students, including 31-year-old student Spike Feirstein, that was recorded on video and posted on WorldStarHipHop. At the beginning of the video, Mr. Coufus can be heard saying, "There's my prey." During the fight, Ray dragged Spike from outside to the school's boxing ring and beat Spike within an inch of his life. Some have called this premeditated murder, although Spike did not die. Despite Spike's age, Ray was still tried for beating up a child, although, to be fair, he did also beat up Spike's crew of 16, 17, and 18-year-olds. Despite his humbling public apology, Ray was crucified in the media for these events and imprisoned.

Ray has had a passion for karate (specifically hitting children) as early as his time as principal, but possibly since childhood as Ray's mother frequently beat up Ray's father in public pay-per-view boxing events.

During the infamous fistfight, Mr. Coufus realized that the teenagers he was beating up had poor fighting techniques. So, upon being released from prison (where he had become very religious), Ray decided to open a karate school called "CouRate." He would like to change it to "CoufRate," but he's already printed "CouRate" shirts and signs. Additionally, he has a lot of investors in his business who are currently in jail and he wouldn't want to upset them by changing the business' name.

Ray's Karate classes primarily focus on how to defend against an advancing principal. In his class, Ray pairs adult students with children as sparing partners in order to teach the children how to defend against an adult attacker and to give the adult students confidence. He has recently allowed women to attend his class due to a petition started by Margret. CouRate's moto is "not necessarily a safe space" and Ray has been known to rob his Karate students as a learning exercise where they either lose their personal items or take them back by force. On such student was Bill Cravy (undercover as Bethany Hart) who's wallet was stolen by Ray after Bill had been beaten up by an 8-year-old girl.

During his appearance on the Teacher's Lounge, Ray fought Todd, Bill, and Sam. Each one of these fights ended with Ray tying Todd's body into a pretzel (a move that Ray calls the "Coutzel"). He also, challenged Howard Levi's to a fight during halftime of an upcoming high school basketball game.