Male High School Girls Softball Coach Claims Reverse Discrimination, Gets Job Back

A highly regarded girls softball coach was facing what he calls reverse discrimination as he was let go from his position in order to hire a woman softball coach instead.

Superintendent Dr. Stephen Nowlin informed coach Brandon Cobb that he would no longer be coaching the Beauregard, Alabama girls softball team as they felt that hiring a woman to coach the softball team would be a better fit for the team and the school as a whole.

“I felt like it was an opportunity to fill that position with a female coach … because we don’t currently have any female coaches at Beauregard High School,” said Nowlin. “I think it’s important to have some.

“That’s just kind of the rationale, is that we need female coaches, too. We need a mixture. We need to have equality in our program for boys and girls in terms of sports that are offered, we need to have equality for them in terms of facilities, and then we need to have males and females among the coaching staff. That’s just what I believe and what I think we legally have to try to do.”

However, Coach Cobb didn’t agree with the superintendents decision and felt that he was treated unjustly in regards to the reason for being let go.

“I kind of do see the district’s coaching decision as discrimination,” Cobb told reporters. “I guess you would call it reverse discrimination, I don’t really know. But it just doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t seem right, because if it were the other way around it would be wrong — remove a woman because you want a man head coach, so why wouldn’t the reverse be just as wrong?”

According to supporters of Cobb, he took the program from nothing and has made it into an extremely competitive program throughout the state of Alabama and Coach Cobb had seemingly done nothing to merit this decision.

“I’m just a fan of the program,” Danny Cooper, whose daughter played under Cobb in 2008 and 2009, according to Yahoo. “I’ve been with it for 15 years. And I’ve seen it go from nothing to where it is by hard work of coach Cobb and the parents getting together and doing what’s right.”

“This is not a personnel issue, this is discrimination because Nowlin just wants a female head coach. Last time I checked, I live in America and you’re not supposed to judge anybody by their gender, by their religion or by their race.”

However, luckily for Cobb it seems as though his supporters actually helped him get his job back and retain his position as the superintendent called the coach only a few days later to resolve the issue.

“Superintendent Dr. Stephen Nowlin said if I still wanted the softball job, it would be mine,” Cobb said. “He was gracious enough to call me himself. We talked about it, and he asked me if I still wanted it. And I do. As far as the details of the conversation, I’d really like… to leave that to Dr. Nowlin.”

Cobb adds that “The support that I’ve received from the community the last couple days — it’s really showed me that they have my back and that they really want me there,” Cobb said. “That means a lot, so I’m very excited about getting the job back.”

Do you feel that this was a case of reverse discrimination against Coach Brandon Cobb?

Coach Brandon Cobb