A Texas baseball coach has been fired for telling a Colorado recruit that he didn’t want players from that state because of its liberal politicians and marijuana laws.
Coach Mike Jeffcoat has been dismissed from his post at Texas Wesleyan, the university announced at a Thursday afternoon press conference.
“Mike Jeffcoat is no longer an employee of Texas Wesleyan University,” school President Frederick Slabach said. “He was separated from the university due to the discriminatory remarks contained in the email to a potential recruit from the state of Colorado.”
On Wednesday, Colorado media released a screen-shot of an email that Jeffcoat sent to Gavin Bell, a baseball player from Cherokee Trail, Colorado, who had expressed interest in coming to Texas Wesleyan.
“Thanks for the interest in our program,” began Jeffcoat, a former major-league pitcher for the Texas Rangers. “Unfortunately, we are not recruiting players from the state of Colorado. In the past, players have had trouble passing our drug test. We have made a decision to not take a chance on Student-athletes from your state. You can thank your liberal politicians.”
At his Thursday press conference, Slabach directly addressed Bell to apologize, to call Jeffcoat’s remarks discriminatory and not endorsed by the university, and to say the school “would love to have Gavin here as a student.”
There was another factor in Jeffcoat’s firing though.
Slabach said the university had been investigating “for the past week” a rules violation on player eligibility and had self-reported the violation to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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