BRANSON MO NEWS: (c) 2017, The Washington Post.When the national anthem kicked on Larry McCullough dropped to his knee. His cousin, Cedric “CJ” Ingram-Lewis, raised a fist into the Texas air.After the song finished Friday night, the two Crosby high school football players – 18 and 16, respectively – were confronted by their coach, Ronnie Mitchem, from Victory & Praise Christian Academy.”He told us that disrespect will not be tolerated,” Ingram-Lewis explained to the Houston Chronicle. “He told us to take off our uniform and leave it there.”Mitchem kicked them off the team.Right there on the field, before first whistle blew on for the Victory & Praise Sharks matchup with Providence Classical, the cousins yanked off their equipment. “He had me and CJ strip down – our uniform, pads, the pants and all – in front of everyone,” McCullough told Reuters.Their demonstration fell as the National Football League faces a storm of controversy over the Colin Kaepernick-inspired protests against police brutality and racial injustice – a fiery debate that has pulled President Trump into its vortex. And while the NFL continued to see protests this Sunday, the movement has spread to the lower levels of athletic play, but with different consequences.While professional teams have grudgingly embraced their players’ right to free speech, college and high school athletic programs have been less comfortable with the collision between sports and protests.Last week, the College of the Ozarks, a Christian college in Branson, Missouri, announced none of their athletic teams will play against competitors who do not stand for the anthem. The principal of a high school in Bossier City, Louisiana, sent a recent letter home to students announcing any player protesting the anthem would lose playing time. And now McCullough and Ingram-Lewis have been benched.In an interview over the weekend, Mitchem, …
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