COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) -
When the Spring Valley Vikings take the field, former assistant head coach Mike Armstrong is not there.
"It's a kick in the gut every time those guys suit up and he's not there," said Armstrong's attorney, Lewis Cromer. "For him, it hurts him. It hurts him deeply."
Instead, Armstrong is a gym teacher at Blythewood Middle School.
"He didn't come as far as he did or work as hard as he did to wind up teaching phys. ed. at a middle school," Cromer said.
Cromer is fighting to get his client reinstated. Over the summer, while the football team was exercising, a fight broke out between two students. Cromer says that fight got Armstrong transferred.
"It was not the coach's fault and certainly the coach is paying a disproportionate part of the blame for what occurred," Cromer said.
Armstrong tried to appeal his transfer to the Richland Two school board, but in a letter from Superintendent Katie Brochu, the board "denied the request for a grievance hearing" and "upheld the decision to reassign" Armstrong.
"It sends a message that even though he may be one of the most successful coaches in high school athletics -- in this day and time with Joe Paterno and these other household names and words -- it puts the mark of Zorro on his forehead," Cromer said.
Cromer believes the district acted prematurely.
"I think he's being used as a scapegoat by the district to try to shield and defend against some lawsuit that somebody's going to bring against them by saying, 'Hey, we got rid of that coach so leave us alone,'" said Cromer.
There's no word of a pending lawsuit, but for now, Cromer says he'll wait for the district to give them a chance to be heard.
In the superintendent's letter, Dr. Brochu says Armstrong can request a transfer to a different position or a different school, but he has to wait until the spring.
School Board member Calvin Jackson said the board evaluated all the evidence in the case and chose to support the superintendent's decision. The evidence includes a video tape of that fight. Because of privacy laws, both Cromer and WIS have been denied access to that tape.
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