Martinez was fired because he played an ineligible student and forced the softball team to forfeit games as a result. This incident occurred during the 2004–2005 school year, but Coach Martinez was not reprimanded at the time and was not fired until more than a year later. Also, eligibility determinations were the responsibility of school administrators, not athletics coaches.
Sweetwater’s argument that it fired Coach Martinez because he let an unauthorized parent coach a summer softball team is specious. Not only was Coach Martinez absent when the incident occurred, but he forbade the parent from coaching after learning of his ineligibility to do so. Moreover, the summer softball team in question “was not conducted under the auspices of the high school.” Finally, while Coach Martinez did file late paperwork for the Las Vegas tournament, he was not then admonished for it. As with the ineligible player incident, the timing of his termination suggests that Sweetwater’s allegedly non-retaliatory reason is merely a post hoc rationalization for what was actually an unlawful retaliatory firing. See Gaffney v. Riverboat Servs. of Ind., Inc., 451 F.3d 424, 452 (7th Cir. 2006) (concluding that a district court’s finding that “defendants first fired the plaintiffs and then came up with post hoc rationalizations for having done so” was not clearly erroneous).
On the record before it, the district court correctly could find that Coach Martinez was fired in retaliation for Plaintiffs’ Title IX complaints, not for any of the pretextual, non-retaliatory reasons that Sweetwater has offered.
