Students, parents rally behind coach who says he was let go for breaking up fight - WSB Atlanta

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GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — Parents and students are rallying behind a high school track coach who said he may have been kicked off the team for how he tried to stop a fight.

Coach James Primus said he planned to keep coaching even after his daughter graduated from the school, but now that’s up to the school.

“Those kids are lost without me, and I’m lost without them,” Primus said.

He told Channel 2 Gwinnett County Bureau Chief Matt Johnson that he never thought he would coach high school track and field, but he fell in love with it and with his students at North Gwinnett High.

“I find joy in looking at a kid and telling them that they can be great,” Primus said.

The former volunteer coach is confused why school leaders dismissed him from the team that he said he helped grow over the past three and a half years.

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“We had approximately, maybe, 20-30 sprinters. We have 90 sprinters now,” Primus said.

The coach told Johnson that his dismissal came after he got in the middle of two students arguing over a bad baton handoff during a meet.

He said he put his hands on the shoulders of one student to calm things down before a fight may have started.

“This is why I put myself in these kinds of environments. So I can intervene in something that could destroy their path,” Primus said.

During a school board meeting last week, the mother of that child, Brenda Moore, said primus should still be coaching.

“We do not believe the coach interacted improperly with our son,” Moore said.

Nearly a dozen people in total asked for Primus to return to North Gwinnett.

“Coach primus has changed my son’s life,” Parent Jeff Fox said.

“As a coach, he was hard but fair to all of us that he coached,” parent Aaron Brebnor said.

In a statement a district spokesperson wrote:

“On Tuesday, March 7, during a meeting between Mr. James Primus and North Gwinnett High School’s Head Track Coach, the decision was made that Mr. Primus would no longer serve as a volunteer track coach for the school.

Primus told Johnson on Thursday that he just wants to coach again.

“There’s never been a day in my life that a kid was afraid of me because they can look in my eyes and know that I care for them,” Primus said.

The district said there’s a plan to support students affected by the decision but not everyone agrees.

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