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High school coach fired for sexting 20-year-old college girlfriend. Wait, what?

May 25, 2010, 3:30 PM EST

12 Comments

So here’s the deal: Jason Robinson, the 32-year-old head football coach at Mandarin High School in Jacksonville, Fla., emailed sexually explicit video and pics of himself to his 20-year-old girlfriend, who is a student at the University of Central Florida. Somehow, the girl’s mother intercepted the pics, which were sent to her daughter’s cell phone. Mom then emailed them to the administrators at Robinson’s high school, raising holy hell. The high school’s principal, Dr. Donna Richardson, immediately fired the coach. Boom, done. So … that’s it, but I must be missing something here, right? Because there are no teachers sleeping with 15-year-old students, or nude photos being sent from coaches to 14-year-olds, or cheerleader sexting, or anything that insures our school system is always in the news. Here’s the principal’s letter to the coach:

“Effective today you have been reassigned to Bulls Bay for the remainder of this school year. You are not to come back onto our campus, and we will make arrangements to get any of your personal belongings to you. You are also being non-reappointed for the next school year. It is regretful it had to come to this, but I believe you understand the situation.”

“We hold our teachers to a higher standard. They are in front of our students. They’re talking with our students. They’re teaching our students how to become good characters,” Johnson said. “So we do look at that, but we’re really focused on any policy violations that might have occurred.”

Because Robinson is within the first three years of his contract, the school can legally fire him for any reason. (“Welcome to Bulls Bay Printing Dept. Your boss is Michael Scott.”). Oh, and the 20-year-old girl in question has a 17-year-old sister who attends Mandarin High. So she’s having fun right now, I’m sure. So there you have it: Another menace to children ferreted out and disposed of? Or someone wrongfully accused? You be the judge. Here are some sample reactions from the Jacksonville Channel 4 TV message board:

* The problem is the whack job mom emailed his video/pic to everyone on the school board and now they’re all trying to cover their *ss. To bad someone didn’t just tell her to grow up then file charges on her. — tljcnj

* Okay I know our teachers are suppose to be held with high standards, but (1) the girlfreind is “of age” and (2) it was sent only to her and apparently nobody else was on it with the guy. He did nothing wrong and I do not see why this is affecting his work! Momma just needs to get over the fact that her little girl, aint her little girl anymore :) — beana1

* I think they should sell the video to raise money for their legal costs when they sue the school. MaxPowerJax

* Is she hot? — somertime

***
Coach Fired For Cell Pics To 20 Year Old Girlfriend [Sports by Brooks]
Mandarin Football Coach Under Fire [News4Jax]
Coach’s Girlfriend’s Mom Sent Lewd Video [News4Jax]

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  1. mrgoodbar213 - May 25, 2010 at 4:43 PM

    Mom needs to get a life. As previoulsy indicated, her daughter is of legal age and what she does is her business. If I were the daughter, I would marry the teacher and have a nude wedding and invite mom and all of her snoody friends and members of the school board.

  2. mrgoodbar213 - May 25, 2010 at 4:48 PM

    Mom needs to get a life. As previoulsy indicated, her daughter is of legal age and what she does is her business. If I were the daughter, I would marry the teacher and have a nude wedding and invite mom and all of her snoody friends and members of the school board.

  3. uncle mike - May 25, 2010 at 5:06 PM

    Could it be that the mother is jealous, and wants the coach to herself instead of the daughter.

  4. don - May 25, 2010 at 5:59 PM

    Hey… Ms Principle…!! A bit of overkill is it now… Mom had her nose in daughter’s private cell phone. Daughter is of age…
    Wake up principle.. Your going to be sitting in court over this…and someone is going to pay for your stupid mistake…

  5. Mandarin Mom - May 27, 2010 at 7:02 AM

    Has anyone considered the fact that he should have been AT LEAST mature enough to know better than to do something so stupid? When he accepted the position as a coach he understood that he would be held to a higher standard. The boys will be better off, as this was not the only area in which he showed a lack of maturity! His on-field behavior left much to be desired. I am not the only parent who felt he should have been let go at the end of last season!

  6. Hey Guess What - Jun 2, 2010 at 1:51 AM

    Since when is sending naughty photos to your of-age, consenting significant other inappriate or immature? Or “stupid”? If he had thought that his messages were going to be intercepted, he never would have sent them.
    What is unquestionably immature and inappropriate is distributing private messages which you were not meant to see. This man’s life is being torn apart, and he has done nothing illegal or even immoral. Well, certainly less immoral than snooping into others’ confidential communications, and dissemination of said messages materials for personal gain.
    Teachers and coaches are, in fact, people with real lives and relationships. Their behavior in the bedroom, as long as it is legal, is of no consequence to students, faculty, administration, or any other human beings.

  7. Robert - Jun 8, 2010 at 11:39 AM

    The mom is a piece of b*tch. Robinson needs to sue her and the school system. This was none of anyone’s business. I see a big fat payday in his future.

  8. Sid - Jun 8, 2010 at 11:46 PM

    Gee, the coach must be an absolute charm with the ladies if he has to dip 12 years younger than his own age…

  9. Craig - Jun 21, 2010 at 9:23 AM

    Given the facts as stated, the only person who seems to truely be in the wrong is the mother. She is the one who is inappropriately going through her adult child’s personal items. If that cell phone contract is in the daughter’s name then the boyfriend should win the lawsuit and I hope he collects a lifetime of lost income. Of course, he would then need to pay for his girlfriend’s college because the mother should be wiped out. If, however, the cell contract is in the parents name then I don’t think she did anything wrong either.
    The principle should definitely have fired him. No question, regardless of where the pics were being sent originally. The coach did a behavior and there were consequences. Welcome to the real world. I have nothing to do with teaching kids, I work in a room full of computers, but I am pretty sure that if someone sent my boss naughty pics of me I would get fired too. Unless, of course, they were peeping Tom type pics that I had nothing to do with.
    I am tired of people doing things that are so obviously risky behaviors and then complaining when they get hit with the consequences.
    I wonder where we will ever find our future leaders? Given the prevalence of cameras these days everthing everyone does that they might embarrass them gets filmed, posted, blogged, archived and indexed. In addition other kids are taking these into locker rooms and such and are filming the other kids and sending them out. Given how that stuff can NEVER be pulled back it is ruining other people’s lives forever. That should absolutely be pursued as a child pornography crime and more. The age of the person commiting the crime is totally irrelevant. They know perfectly well that is not an acceptable behavior and just like the coach they should not be shocked when they get in trouble for using poor judgement and misbehaving.

  10. Steve - Jul 23, 2010 at 11:23 PM

    Some of you need to look at the Bill of Rights. This issue has been rehashed adnausium by higher courts and things like who has the phone contract will not matter if the phone can be shown to be utilized by the 20yo daughter almost exclusively, which it sounds like ought to be quite easy. The Liberty Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is quite clear; “No State shall… deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The coach’s firing from the school clearly violates that clause as well as the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and probably the 10th. The point is, at no point did the coach violate any law or rule. The mother’s nosiness and subsequent distribution of the photos would have been a solely civil matter had the school not fired the coach. Once the representative of the state (dumbassed principle; I thought she worked at a school) stepped in and deprived him of his rights without due process the violation of his guaranteed civil rights was a fait accompli. The best example of a decision that comes to mind would be the 1969 Court decision which unanimously concluded that the right of privacy protected an individual’s right to possess and view pornography in his own home. By definition this reasonable expectation of privacy extends to any place or device where one would expect such privacy. In Stanley v Georgia, drawing support for the Court’s decision from both the 1st and 4th Articles (Amendments), Justice Marshall wrote:
    “Whatever may be the justifications for other statutes regulating obscenity, we do not think they reach into the privacy of one’s own home. If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a State has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch. Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.”
    Sounds to me like the principal is going to get schooled and mom is going to be screwed.

  11. moleqj - Aug 8, 2010 at 7:07 AM

    America is so conservative that it is suffocating. This teacher and football coach did what millions of people do. Have fun with his adult consenting girlfriend. It’s not a case of, “he should have known better”. He did absolutely NOTHING wrong. Now he has to live with an enormous amount of stress and the terrible labeling of his character that ordinary people cannot understand. We need to stop this ‘scandal crusade’ that is going on in ‘ultra conservative’ America and stop trying to ruin the lives of people who just want to have consenting adult fun from time to time.

  12. Daniel - Aug 13, 2010 at 12:49 PM

    I think one issue is not understanding the current state of privacy in America.
    There isn’t any privacy in America!
    Google has a file on you. They collect information about you through your search requests and tag it to your computers I.P. address.
    If you Google your own name, they add your name. They can look up your address and fly over to your house on Google Earth and put a nice close up of your house in the file along with all your search information and preferences. Then add your Facebook information with all of your family and friends photos and a nice picture of you, all linked together.
    You have a giant spider web data base with the American public GIVING AWAY their privacy.
    Who buys your DATA from Google?
    It is uninformed to send pictures of your naked body over the airwaves. You should expect it to go public.
    Mom should get her nose out of her daughters business..There are already enough people doing that for her.
    “You are posting this comment to a publicly viewable discussion.”

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