US High School Football Coach Sacked For Rapping About Drugs

A veteran American high-school football coach will be spitting rhymes in the unemployment line (pfft, rap's easy) after a colleague reported him to superiors over an online video depicting the teacher rapping about his past drug use, it has been reported.

According to CBS, Simi Valley High School coach Otis Newell has spent the better part of a decade encouraging Californian youth to be physically active and socially responsible humans, providing mentorship to at-risk students to educate them about drugs and avoiding gang culture.

As an extension of that, Newell also dabbles in hip hop as a hobby, using the moniker Big PHO, and it was a recent music video in which he addresses his own old habits and experiences that has now resulted in Newell being dismissed. As CBS reports, for another, unidentified, school coach, the imagery of drugs apparently being sold out of an ice-cream truck in Newell's video clip for his debut single U Need It I Got It was beyond the pale of moral decency. The coach complained that the video was inappropriate, the school district apparently agreed, and Newell was given the boot.

Understandably, he is a bit taken aback by the whole situation. "I just think this just went way too far, way too fast," Newell told CBS. "It's a depiction of pretty much how I grew up, and there's no secret that in the city where I come from, drugs and gang violence were everyday parts of my life."

In its defence, the Simi Valley Unified School District, the body that handed down the order to dismiss Newell, explained that his "ethics, morals, and character as a human being are not being questioned". However, it told Newell, "Please know the decision to terminate you as a coach with our district is strictly related to our desire to separate our district and our schools from any affiliation with negative images and illegal activity, whether real or fictitious."

"Although the music video and song lyrics are not reflective of how you are currently living your life as a husband, father or coach, the images and activities portrayed in the video are ones we cannot support," it continued, as local outlet KTLA 5 reports.

To his credit, Newell appears to be taking it all in defiant stride, acknowledging the wealth of support he is generating on social media and taking a couple of good-natured shots at the total squares who wouldn't let a man get real with the kids.

A checkered past means you get KING'D if you play it right! Get it, checkers/king, right over your head huh?

— Otis Newell (@CoachPHO_DC) August 25, 2015

Issues dont get solved by ignoring them, they only get bigger

— Otis Newell (@CoachPHO_DC) August 25, 2015

Listen to 01 Welcome To Simi by BigPHO_PLOMusic #np on #SoundCloud https://t.co/2sHos55Xue what about this song? Is this a problem?

— Otis Newell (@CoachPHO_DC) August 25, 2015

Thank you very much. It's killing me not be preparing them for this Friday and the rest of the season https://t.co/fHLo5ImX4W

— Otis Newell (@CoachPHO_DC) August 25, 2015

This is what all the fuss is about... its been on iTunes and Google play for DL for a year LOL pic.twitter.com/XGoaCaaWng

— Otis Newell (@CoachPHO_DC) August 26, 2015