Average Joe: The Coach Joe Kennedy Story

by Joseph A. Kennedy

The football coach who fought all the way to Supreme Court for his right to pray shares his inspiring story of courage, redemption, and grace.

When Coach Joe Kennedy started offering a prayer on the field after each high school football game, the school district tried to shut him down, launching a seven-year legal battle that went to the Supreme Court—twice. In June 2022, he won.

Average Joe is the story of an unlikely champion of religious freedom. A former atheist, Kennedy never imagined he’d lead the defense of Americans’ First Amendment rights. He certainly didn’t intend to be at odds with his wife, who was the school district’s personnel director. But his love for God and country and his never-say-die courage landed this former Marine in the fight of his life.

The victory in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District opened the door for thousands of previously settled cases regarding public prayer to be reexamined with a friendlier eye to personal religious expression.

Average The Coach Joe Kennedy Story is a compelling personal account of his troubled youth, what he learned in the Marines, the lessons he instills in his players, his faith in God, and his love for his family. It’s a story that will inspire readers to live more boldly.

Audio CD

Published October 24, 2023

Reviews

[LAMONT D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the book and see the movie. It does not matter which you do first. The book fills in the details that the movie does not have time to explain. But the movie is true to the story of Joe, his troublesome childhood, his life as a Marine, the love story with his wife Denise, and the battle of a lifetime for the right to pray on a football field after a high school game. He is funny, very transparent, he doesn't know why God chose him to carry this fight to the Supreme Court, but he was a fighter and when he submitted himself to God, he became a winner in more ways than one. The main story is the fundamental battle won that day when the Supreme Court handed down their decision which was monumental for the cause of liberty and freedom of worship per our constitution. Joe was adamant about that fact throughout his story. He wasn't trying to convert anybody, his players or anyone else to a certain belief. He made a vow to God and that vow was not to be compromised no matter what the cost. In that respect he is a hero and something to grab a hold of and consider in the days ahead when our faith may be put on the chopping block of the cancel culture of the elites.

[nona woods · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Mr.Kennedy

I really enjoyed reading this testimony of an ordinary man being used by God. I think most of us are just ordinary. The bush that was set on fire yet didn't burn in the Old Testament was an ordinary bush. I was a 15 year old girl of reputation when God showed me in my minds eye that when Jesus was suffering and dieing on that cross two thousand years ago, that it was for my sins as well as the worlds that He stayed on that cross. That he loved someone like me, a very lost and unworthy lost soul. And then my Lord went on to have a wonderful young preacher boy fall in love with me and for fifty years we served the Lord Jesus together until God called Bro. Buddy Woods home at a very young 70 years old with lung cancer December 20,2015. God blessed us with three wonderful children wind when they were struggling with why God had to take their Daddy at such an young. All I could tell them was their Daddy was a man called of God to help churches heal and be about the Fathers work of showing the love of Jesus and how He calls so many ordinary people to carry on his work in this world . And when Bro. Buddy had run his race an completed the task God ask of him,He called Buddy home. I think ordinary Joe Kennedy and ordinary Buddy Woods and ordinary Dell Pruitt Woods would have liked to have had time to share all the way our Savior lead our lives.

[Matthew Kilpatrick]

"Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a high school football coach’s right to engage in “brief, quiet, personal” prayer—despite photographic evidence that his prayers were drawn-out, loud, and extremely public. At the time, the decision was embarrassing enough, as it rested on the fiction that the coach, Joe Kennedy, was reprimanded for “private religious expression” when he was actually establishing huge prayer circles in the middle of the field. Since then, the situation has only further exposed the shameful artifice of the ruling. At first, Kennedy appeared to have little interest in taking back his old job, which was supposedly what he was fighting for. Then he acknowledged that he had sold his house and moved across the country, with no plans to move back. Finally, on Friday, Kennedy returned to coach one football game. Then he quit, as the Seattle Times reported on Wednesday. He has no evident desire to exercise the rights that his lawyers fought for over years of litigation. Those lawyers, however, will walk away with $1.775 million in attorneys’ fees, paid out by the school district." - https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2...

[Steve Eubanks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heroes aren’t perfect. If they were we wouldn’t believe in them. But we do believe because we know they are real, flawed, emotional, and in one important moment, courageous human beings.

Coach Joe Kennedy is that man. Today kids can pray at school functions because of the case Coach Kennedy won before the Supreme Court.

This book - easy to read and even easier to relate to - outlines an average man’s journey from troubled orphan to wartime marine to coach to national hero. Joe shares it all, good and bad. His story is certainly worth the time.

[Ron Jaeger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story of the life of a patriot who’s beginning was very rough. He not only served honorably to uphold The Constitution but later, as a coach, defended its meaning HONORABLY. It’s also a story of great faith in the God Who created us all and unconditionally loves us, even when we are unlovable. We are ALL unlovable.
A great true story, A special THANK YOU to Alliance Defending Freedom for making this story happen.
It demonstrates very vividly why we need Conservatives leading our governments and serving as bureaucrats.

[Ben Neff · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was anything but average. Amazing to hear all of the things he went through prior to his court battle. I listened to it on audiobook and it was really good for that other than the one chapter where he and his wife kept going back and forth sharing their perspective and I did not always know who was talking.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read, enjoyed how was told from Coach’s POV. Easy to relate to his experiences as told through his eyes. Love how he says that he tries to live his life as a Christian as simply as possible:
1. Love God
2. Love others . . . And don’t be a jerk.
We should all take a page from Coach’s playbook and do the same.

[Tiffany Velasquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an unbelievable true story of Christianity and fighting for the right to pray. It’s much easier to be a closet Christian these days rather than being open and vocal of your faith and risking public prosecution. God bless him and his wife for showing that you do not have to be perfect, you just have to have faith and do what is right according to God.

[Deborah Heffington · Rating 5 out of 5]

We live in America—with a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution that was drafted to give us religious freedom. The Supreme Court upheld the Constitutional rights of Joe Kennedy, which in turn, had solidified the rights of ALL Americans. Thank you Coach for your stand for all Americans!

[Katrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Joseph, for serving your country. And thank you for writing, honestly and transparently about your journey in sharing it with us. It is a good read and just reminded me that we have to keep looking at the constitution and not think we know what it says, but actually read it and find out what it says.