Here is an inspiring story from the Deseret News in Utah of  a caring football coach.

In a subsequent story, the Deseret News reports that most of the players earned back their jerseys and their spots on the team after community service, a class on character and improved school performance and attitude.  All but nine players were reinstated. Those players may also be back on the team if they fulfull the coach's requirements.

Here is the original Deseret News story that garnered national attention for the Coach Matt Labrum and his high school:

Matt Labrum believes football helps create great men. And it is that belief and his passion for the game that led the Union High School head football coach and his staff to suspend all 41 players from the team because of off-field problems ranging from cyberbullying to skipping classes.

“We felt like everything was going in a direction that we didn’t want our young men going,” said Labrum, an alumnus of the program he’s coached for the past two years. “We felt like we needed to make a stand.”

So the coach and his staff gathered the team together after Friday, Sept. 20,  night's loss to Judge Memorial Catholic High School and told them he was concerned about some of the players' actions and behavior off the field. He then instructed them all to turn in their jerseys and their equipment. There would be no football until they earned the privilege to play.

Jenn Rook, whose son Karter is a sophomore on the team, was waiting outside the school that night. “They were in the locker room for a really long time,” she said. “They came out, and there were tears. Those boys were wrecked. My son got in the car really upset and (said), ‘First of all, there is no football team. It’s been disbanded.’”

One incident in particular moved the coaches to action. A few days before, guidance counselors informed the coaches about a student who believed he was being harassed and bullied by football players on an anonymous online chat program called ask.fm — something Labrum and his staff had never heard of before last week. Because the social media website allows users to hurl insults from behind a screen name, there was no way for coaches or counselors to know who was harassing the young man, who is not a member of the football team.

But there were other issues that concerned the coaches, including failing and skipping classes and showing disrespect to teachers. “It had gotten to a new level,” said Labrum. “We felt like we weren’t respecting the teachers, what they were trying to do inside the school, other people’s time. Overall, our program wasn’t going where we wanted it to go. We weren’t reaching the young men like we wanted to reach them.”

Here is what coaches required of players to be reinstated:

Saturday: 7:00 a.m. electing captains "Attitude Reflects Leadership" — Remember the Titans.

Monday: 3:30 we will be doing a service project during practice time, come prepared to work, then we are all required to attend the Cougar Legend Banquet. Find ways to serve during this event.

Tuesday: We will be performing more service in lieu of practice.

Wednesday: Study Hall begins at 3:30 and we better have specific items to work on. We will be in there for the duration of practice. You must have enough work for 2 hours.

Criteria to EARN jersey back for Friday's Game

1) Attend all practices that we have planned and any others that may come up.

2) Be on time and totally prepared

3) No F's or discipline problems

4) Do an individual service project for your family, give me a typed report of it and pictures and have your parents sign it. (Due Wed. before study hall)

5) Memorize and pass this quote off to one of the coaches at some point during study hall

"Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast is not given to us. We have to build it, piece by piece — by thought, by choice, courage, and determination."

If you meet ALL criteria by Wednesday night, you will have earned the privilege to play in the games on Thursday and Friday. If you fail then you will miss this week's game.

Signed,

your coaches