An Iowa high school coach who was fired after a 1-8 season is now 2-0 in his effort to win back his job. The Iowa Court of Appeals yesterday ruled 2-1 in favor of Bruce Wall, who was fired in April 2009 by the Jesup (Iowa) School District. According to the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, district officials claimed Wall did not respond enthusiastically enough to administrators' recommendations for improvements. Wall countered that some of administrators' suggestions, such as having mandatory weight lifting sessions in the off-season, weren't legal, and that the real reason the school board removed him from his position was that he hadn't won more games. An adjudicator ruled in favor of Wall in 2010, and the appeals court agreed that the board didn't have just cause to terminate him - the win-loss record wasn't enough of a justification to let a coach go.
Wall, who won about 40 percent of his games throughout his nine-year career at Jesup (an improvement over the previous coach's record) has reportedly been reinstated with back pay. The school board is mulling a possible appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court.
