Court Opinion

ID: 9845180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:16:20.669103+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:53.869252
License: Public Domain

NEELY, Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent because the majority opinion lacks common sense and defies the law. Once stripped down, this case is a question of whether a school board must retain the services of a losing football coach.
The majority argues that W.Va.Code 18A-2-1 [1969] through 18A-2-11 [1985] protect Mr. Smith’s coaching job. More specifically they suggest that W.Va.Code 18A-2-7 [1977] and W.Va.Code 18A-2-8 [1985] grant Mr. Smith a passel of procedural rights that the school board must observe before they may select another coach. The most cursory glance at these two Code provisions reveals that neither is applicable to the case at hand. W. Va. Code 18A-2-7 [1977] provides for the assignment, transfer, promotion, demotion, suspension and dismissal of school personnel by the school superintendent. It was the school board, and not the school superintendent, which voted not to renew Mr. Smith’s contract. Accordingly, W.Va.Code 18A-2-7 [1977] is wholly beside the point. Although the majority comes a little closer to hitting the mark when they invoke W.Va.Code 18A-2-8 [1985] (at least this provision deals with actions by the school board), it is also inapplicable to Mr. Smith’s case because the statute deals only with suspensions and dismissals. The school board seeks neither to suspend nor to dismiss Mr. Smith. Rather, he will continue to teach at Logan County High School.
The Board voted not to renew Mr. Smith’s coaching contract. W.Va.Code 18A-2-1 [1969] to 18A-2-11 [1985] does not govern contracts for extracurricular activities; these contracts are singled out for special treatment and are governed exclusively by W. Va. Code 18A-4-16 [1982]. That statute states:
(1) The assignment of teachers and service personnel to extracurricular assignments shall be made only by mutual agreement of the employee and the superintendent, or designated representative, subject to board approval. Extracurricular duties shall mean, but not be limited to, any activities that occur at times other than regularly scheduled working hours, which include the instructing, coaching, chaperoning, escorting, providing support services or caring for the needs of students, and which occur on a regularly scheduled basis.
(2) The employee and the superintendent, or a designated representative, sub*72ject to board approval, shall mutually agree upon the maximum number of hours of extracurricular assignment in each school year for each extracurricular assignment.
(3) The terms and conditions of the agreement between the employee and the Board of Education shall be in writing and signed by both parties.
(4) An employee’s contract of employment shall be separate from the extracurricular assignment agreement provided for in this section and shall not be conditioned upon the employee’s acceptance or continuance of any extracurricular assignment proposed by the superintendent, as designated representative, or the board. [Emphasis supplied by the Court.]
The legislature obviously wanted to allow for special treatment of extracurricular activities that would remove contracts to coach from other teaching and service contracts, to which the Code grants special protection and thus they devised a separate statutory scheme. When the legislature used the words “mutual agreement,” they meant “mutual agreement.” In this case the board did not agree!
The Legislature specifically placed extracurricular activities outside the ambit of the WVa.Code 18A-2-1, et seq.. Contracts for coaching and other extracurricular activities are singled out for special treatment for two reasons. First, teachers need protection. Under W.Va.Code 18A-4-16(4) [1982] the employee is protected against the school board’s or superintendent’s making unreasonable demands upon the employee to participate in extracurricular activities. Whether a teacher decides to coach cannot affect his underlying position as a teacher. Second, there is a pervasive, society-wide understanding that coaching is markedly different from teaching or other full time positions within a school. Courts that have considered the equivalence of coaching and teaching positions have almost unanimously decided that coaching positions are not the same as teaching positions and thus should not receive the same protections. Smith v. Bd. of Education of Urbana School District No. 116, 708 F.2d 258 (7th Cir.1983); Bryan v. Alabama State Tenure Com’n., 472 So.2d 1052 (Ala.Civ.App.1985); Leone v. Kimmel, 335 A.2d 290 (Del.Super.1975); Tate v. Livingston Parish School Bd., 444 So.2d 219 (La.App. 1 Cir., 1983); Irwin v. Board of Education of School District No. 25 of Holt County, 215 Neb. 794, 340 N.W.2d 877 (1983); Neal v. School District of York, 205 Neb. 558, 288 N.W.2d 725 (1980); Because teaching and coaching are not equivalents, W.Va.Code 18-4-16 [1982] requires separate contracts for each position and the mutual agreement of the parties.
Through this bifurcated arrangement, the legislature accomplishes two goals. W. Va. Code 18A-2-1 et seq. remains in place to prevent teachers and service personnel from having their livelihoods arbitrarily stripped for refusing to coach. But it allows school boards and superintendents flexibility in providing for the supervision of extracurricular activities. Mr. Smith’s case illustrates the utility of this division. The school board may remove him from his coaching position without affecting his real job — teaching. Teachers cannot have it both ways: they cannot claim the benefits of W.Va.Code 18A-4-16 [1982] and ignore its limitations. The statute exempts extracurricular activities from the protections of Code 18A-2-1 et seq.
What is even more depressing than the majority’s inability to read a simple statutory scheme, is their ongoing, systematic attempt to remove all control over the school system from parents and other local authorities. In counties such as Logan, high school sports provide one of the main sources of social esprit. Games provide a center for the town’s social life and a chance for its citizens to gather together. Teams such as the football team not only rely on the continuing support of the State, they also rely on a significant amount of community support in the form of booster clubs and attendance at the games. Because programs, such as the football program, are so important to community spirit and rely so heavily on community support, I feel no compunction leaving such pro*73grams’ control in the hands of local residents. Without strong local support, any football program is doomed to failure.
It is apparent from the record that Mr. Smith is being fired because he can’t win football games.1 I cannot see who benefits by requiring a fact finding hearing to substantiate this point. Procedural rights to notice and hearing are an important means to protect individuals’ rights, property, and liberty. But this does not mean that we should govern all human relations by reference to legal-style procedural due process. We should no more require a formal hearing before a school board may discharge a high school football coach than we should require a formal hearing before a young man breaks off his romantic relationship with a young woman. As Grant Gilmore observed:
The better the society, the less law there will be. In Heaven there will be no law, and the lion will lie down with the lamb. The values of an unjust society will reflect themselves in an unjust law. The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed.
G. Gilmore, The Ages of American Law, 110-11 (1977). By extending the procedural rights granted to teachers and other school employees to football coaches, the majority does more than misread a statute and trivialize the venerable institution of tenure; they unveil a nasty and brutish world in which all human relations are governed by court approval that does absolutely nothing to win football games.
I am authorized to say that Justice BROTHERTON joins with me in this dissent.

. Mr. Smith's record as head coach at Logan High School is as follows:
Wins Losses
1980 2 8
1981 4 6
Wins Losses
1982 4 6
1983 4 6
1984 2 8
TOTAL 16 34