Four high school football coaches resigned from the Palmyra (Missouri) school district after a review of text messages on a school-issued phone show a four-year string of racist, homophobic and threatening messages between the quartet, according to a report in the Muddy River News, the news source for Quincy and Adams County, Hannibal and Marion County and the surrounding region.
These messages went beyond the typical locker room banter like, y’know, “grab ’em by the pussy” talk or, if you’re Jim Jordan, discussions of how the team doctor assaults the student-athletes on the team he coaches. These coaches weren’t just homophobic and sexist, which you pretty much expect from football coaches in a Midwestern town that’s literally 95% white.
In the age of school shootings, some of the texts are just stupid. “Just come in guns a blazing … kill them all,” one replies to another who expressed frustration at teaching at the high school. Another said if a rival got a position as an assistant wrestling coach, he’s “going to kill them all and myself in a murder suicide.” A third discussed having a bomb ready to detonate at the school. “Gana (sic) build a bomb one day,” he said, eliciting a smiling face from another, prompting him to comment, “Not saying if it will be used for bad or good, but it will be built,” ’cause that’s so funny.