The drama surrounding Coach Taylor and the Dillon High football squad on Friday Night Lights was all scripted, but the pressures facing Coach Rush Propst and the Valdosta High team on Titletown High are all very real.
The Netflix reality series follows the student athletes and the athletic staff at the southern Georgia high school, which has the best football record in history.
Led by their coach, Rush Propst, the show follows the Wildcats during the 2020 season as they try to return the football program to its former glory.
However, after filming concluded, Coach Propst was fired from the school.
Coach Rush Propst was fired from Valdosta High in 2021.
Throughout his long and storied high school coaching career, Coach Propst has been involved in various scandals. During his time at Hoover High School, he was accused of changing students’ grades in order to allow them to remain eligible to play football. It was also alleged that he had given special treatment to certain athletes, that he had spied on other teams, and that he been having an extra-marital relationship with a school administrator.
Coach Propst did admit to having an affair, and he acknowledged that he had a family with his then-girlfriend, Stefnie Duck. He ultimately got divorced from his first wife, and he married Stefnie shortly thereafter.
He resigned from Hoover High amid controversy in 2007, and he then took a job at Colquitt County High School.
Article continues below advertisement
In 2016, he was accused of head-butting a player. Though he was initially suspended for the entire season, Coach Propst appealed the decision, and he was allowed to continue coaching. He stayed at that high school through the 2018 season, and he was then let go after it was determined that he had violated the Code of Ethics for Educators.
He next took a job at Valdosta High, and cameras were rolling as he took on his first season at the school.
Source: Netflix
Article continues below advertisement
However, Michael “Nub” Nelson, the former executive director of the Touchdown Club in Valdosta, secretly recorded Coach Propst on his phone in May 2020. In these recordings, which were later publicly released, Coach Propst discusses needing “funny money.”
This money would help to pay for apartments and for other living expenses for players who had transferred to the school.
After the tape came out, five Valdosta High players were declared ineligible to play, and the team was put on probation. Coach Propst’s contract was not renewed.
Article continues below advertisement