Two High School Coaches Were Fired After Taking School Bus on a Beer Run—But Is It Really That Bad?

Two high school coaches in Tishomingo, Oklahoma were recently fired for commandeering a school bus to go on a beer run while chaperoning a basketball camp.

Obviously, what these coaches did was wrong, and I certainly believe that anyone who has accepted the responsibility of caring for other people's children needs to take their job seriously. I also understand that legally speaking, high school basketball coaches have to be sober when they're around students and that using a school bus to pick up beer is a clear violation of school policy.

But at the same time, I don't think it's that big of a deal. After all, they were high school basketball coaches, and contrary to the law, everyone knows that extracurricular coaches are among the school faculty members who are allowed to be fucked up on the job.

It's an unspoken rule in American society that math and science teachers have to be sober throughout the school week, but English teachers only have to be sober for at least three out of every five school days. For the other two days, though, it's completely socially acceptable for any drunk or hungover language arts teacher to dim the lights and play a Kenneth Branagh movie.

It's also an unwritten school policy that art teachers are allowed to be stoned all of the time, shop teachers are allowed to be stoned on days when students aren't using power tools, and PE teachers are allowed to wear the same track suit every day and drink whiskey out of a flask in a parked minivan adjacent to the school's soccer field. Or at least that was my experience with high school gym teachers. And if it's okay for PE instructors, then I assume the same is true for sports coaches.

But the problem wasn't that two basketball coaches were drinking on duty, it's that they were caught drinking. And they were caught drinking because they made the mistake of driving a school bus to buy beer, even though a school bus is the least conspicuous vehicle to drive while breaking the law, in part because it's specifically designed to be conspicuous as fuck.

Ultimately, the coaches were busted after a convenience store clerk reported them to the authorities. And that's fair. For all the clerk knew, there were children on that bus, and the only thing creepier than two men driving around at night in an empty school bus is two men driving around at night in a school bus full of children.

Of course, this is far from the worst thing that a faculty member has ever done with a school bus. I'm sure many of you remember the infamous case in the 90s when a female teacher was accused of shrinking a school bus and flying it into a male student's body. And though she somehow managed to get off scot-free, I think we can all agree that it's completely immoral for a teacher to penetrate a student with a bus, no matter how magical that bus may be.