Did Kneeling For the National Anthem Cost ETSU Basketball Coach Jason Shay His Job?

His lousy contract didn’t help matters, either.

Marky Billson

Jason Shay’s resignation as East Tennessee State head men’s basketball coach comes as a surprise to even the closest observers of the Buccaneers.

But if one wants an answer as to why, look no further than the team’s action of kneeling for the national anthem this season.

Johnson City is not San Francisco, and when WJHL-TV’s Jesse Krull captured the entire team, including Shay, on the court kneeling for the national anthem prior to their game at Chattanooga it infuriated a large segment of the fan base.

What further complicated matters was it took 12 days after this action that the players themselves came up with any statement as to why they were kneeling.

ETSU didn’t win a regular season game afterwards, and their 63–53 victory against Chattanooga in the Southern Conference men’s basketball tournament was largely the result of the Mocs playing shorthanded. The Bucs dropped seven of their final 10 games to finish with an 11–12 record against Division I opponents after a season in which they’d won a school record 30 games and conference championship.

Shay wasn’t the head coach then, but he was Steve Forbes’ top assistant.