Ex-Canton McKinley football player talks about day his coaches ordered him to eat a pizza

CANTON – The former McKinley High School football player who is suing the Canton City School District and his former coaches over alleged civil rights violations says the coaches likely didn’t know about his religious beliefs before the day they forced him to eat a pepperoni pizza as punishment for missing a practice.

But they should have known that he didn’t eat pork, he contends. And he believes they should have stopped the punishment when he said that day that it violated his religion.

“... I just don’t understand why after I said I don’t eat pork, they didn’t take it (the pepperoni pizza) away. So, they just kept it there and then when I kicked the box, they brought it back to me, so there was nothing I could do,” said the player, according to a transcript of a deposition he gave on June 23.

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His deposition is the first time the public has heard from the player in his own words about the discipline on May 24, 2021, where coaches sat the then-17-year-old player in the middle of an auxiliary gym and ordered his teammates to circle the gym doing exercises with 45-pound weights until the player ate an entire pepperoni pizza. The incident made international headlines and has spawned three lawsuits.

Attorney Peter Pattakos, the lead attorney representing six of the former McKinley football coaches in two of the lawsuits related to the pizza-eating incident, on Thursday released a 298-page transcript of the player’s roughly seven-hour testimony that was taken as part of a court deposition.

In an online post that accompanies the transcripts, Pattakos writes that the player’s testimony, along with testimony from his father, another former coach and affidavits from his former teammates, prove the coaches never knowingly violated the player’s religious beliefs, a key contention that elevated the story to an international level and is the basis for the player’s federal civil rights lawsuit.

Pattakos also states that he’s releasing the transcripts in the interest of “correcting the record and mitigating the damage” caused by the defamatory accusations that have ruined the reputations of former McKinley head football coach Marcus Wattley and his former assistant coaches Frank McLeod, Zachary Sweat, Romero Harris, Cade Brodie and Tyler Thatcher.

The coaches, who were dismissed from their coaching and school district jobs last year, have maintained that they did not force the player to eat anything, that they did not know about the player’s religious faith, they had offered him chicken nuggets as an alternative and it was the player’s decision to pick off the pepperoni and cheese and eat the pizza. They have insisted they were trying to rescue a troubled player whose off-the-field behavior was influencing his teammates and was jeopardizing his future as a Division I college athlete. They said previous methods of discipline had failed to reach the player.

The deposition, where the player testified under oath, was conducted as part of the defamation lawsuit that the coaches filed a year ago against the player, the player’s father, Kenny Walker, their attorney Edward Gilbert and former assistant coach Josh Grimsley. The lawsuit also had been filed against Canton City school leaders but they were dismissed from the case in January.

A jury trial in Stark County Common Pleas Court is set for Sept. 19. Pattakos said attempts to settle the lawsuit failed this week when the defendants offered only a four-figure settlement sum.

“We remain proud to fight for these wrongly maligned coaches and clear their good names in court,” Pattakos said.

Attorney Michael Kahlenberg, who represents the player and his father in the coaches’ defamation lawsuit, said he cannot comment on pending litigation.

Attorney Stephen Griffin, who represents Gilbert in the coaches defamation lawsuit, declined to respond to Pattakos’ online post. “As we approach trial, any attempt to taint a jury pool is truly not a practice I would ever engage. I will defer to Judge Haupt and her able staff to handle. My job is in the courtroom, not the press room.”

What did the player tell the coaches about his Hebrew Israelite beliefs?

According to his deposition testimony, the player’s father first introduced the family to the Hebrew Israelite faith in 2013.

But it wasn’t until roughly five years later when the player, then in eighth grade, started to strictly follow the faith’s dietary restrictions. Besides pork, the player said he also abstains from eating seafood “because it’s a bottom feeder, just like a pig.”

“It says in the Bible that it’s unclean if you touch it,” said the player who said his family attends the Gathering of Christ Church in Cleveland.

The player, who is now 18 years old, said he never brought up his religion to his McKinley coaches or his teammates. He didn’t provide a reason why.

“I just always told them – whenever they bought food and stuff, I told them I don’t eat pork and left it at that,” he said.

He recalled two specific instances, including one where a pepperoni pizza was offered, where he says he told the coaches that he didn’t eat pork and the coaches gave him an alternative, such as chicken.

When Pattakos asked the player why he participated in a rib-eating contest with his teammates in 2019, he recalled that he had asked Wattley whether the ribs were beef or pork but Wattley didn’t know.

“So I just went with it and went to the contest,” the player testified.

The player said he felt bad about eating the ribs after seeing news reports in 2021 that the ribs had been pork.

What led up to the May 24th discipline?

The player also pushed back on the coaches’ statements that they were trying to rescue a “troubled” player and that he had been grounded by his father for smoking marijuana.

The player testified that he was grounded because his father found a Black & Mild wrapper. His father, during his own separate deposition testimony, said he had found the tobacco wrapper in his son's pants pockets and that he had told one of the coaches that his son was grounded for “smoking.” The father acknowledged that he never explicitly said whether the smoking referred to a cigar or marijuana.

The player admitted he had lied to his teammates and coaches and told them he had been grounded for smoking marijuana.

“I told them that I was smoking marijuana because I didn’t want them to know that I was smoking Black & Milds because I thought Black & Milds was worse than marijuana,” the player testified.

He also said he wasn’t missing workouts due to using marijuana as the coaches have suggested. He said he missed some workouts because he was getting paid to do yard work for a coach’s friend, a woman at his mom’s church and his grandfather. It’s unclear whether the player told the coaches about the yardwork.

The player testified he knew consequences existed for missing off-season workouts, which he said the coaches called mandatory. He described various drills, including the Hallway of Hell workout, that players had to complete when they were absent.

Yet, he admits he didn’t notify coaches on May 20, 2021, that he wouldn’t be at practice that day because he wanted to rest an injured shoulder.

“I don’t know what they would have thought, but what was going through my mind at the time was if I would have told them, they would have still had me come to the trainer, but I couldn’t do nothing with my shoulder at the time. It was just hurting to lift it in the air.”

When a coach sent him a text message asking him about his absence, the player responded that “I’ll owe you Monday.”

Monday was May 24, 2021.

What does the player say happened on May 24?

The player testified he walked into the Frank “Turk” Alberta Football Operations Center and went into the weight room. He had planned to do some exercises with a stretch band due to his shoulder injury.

“And then they started telling everyone to grab 45-pound plates, but as I reached to go grab one, Coach Watt says, ‘Not you, you’re chilling,’” the player said.

“And then we walk out into the auxiliary gym and there’s a pizza in the chair, and I think coach – I think Coach Brodie handed me the pizza and I set it down.

“And then … they start telling everyone to get around the gym with the 45-pound plates, and then they start saying if I don’t eat it, then the team will have to keep doing the punishment until it’s all gone.

“And then I realize it is pepperoni pizza, so I start saying ‘I don’t eat pork’ and ‘I don’t want to eat it’ at least 10 times.”

The player said coach McLeod had been sitting in a chair beside him eating a piece of the pizza.

“… I was yelling at him, I was telling him I don’t eat it because of my religion,” the player said.

It’s unclear from the player’s testimony whether the other coaches heard the player talking about his religion. The player said McLeod didn’t react and continued to eat the pizza next to him.

The player said he continued to protest and at one point kicked the box, but the box was brought back to him.

“I wasn’t taking it, so then he just sat it down right beside me again. And I was cussing at them, and they were saying, ‘Oh, ... then he was like, when did he get so tough?’”

He said coach Brodie told him to take off the pepperoni.

“I said I don’t eat pepperoni because – I don’t want to eat it because the grease is cooked in with the cheese. So then after they’re still not listening to me, the team’s still around me doing the punishment, so I just eat the pizza,” the player testified. “And then there was this crust left, and Coach Brodie ordered me to eat the crust too till it was all gone for the team to be done.”

The player said in his rush to eat the pizza so his teammates could stop the workout sooner, he believes he left some cheese on the pizza.

While two of his teammates have signed affidavits that say the coaches offered the player a nonpork option such as McDonald’s or chicken, the player testified, “I didn’t hear nothing about no chicken nuggets.”

He said he would have eaten the chicken nuggets.

The teammates’ affidavits also said that Wattley told the player he could leave if he didn’t want to participate.

But the player testified that Wattley told him that if he walked out, he couldn’t come back.

“I remember them cussing at me, but I remember Coach Wattley saying that if I don’t eat it then … the team is going to keep doing the workouts and if I was to leave, then I couldn’t come back,” he said.

When Pattakos asked him if he believed that any of the coaches intended to harm him by violating his religious beliefs, the player responded: “I don’t know what they were – what was going through their heads, so I don’t know.”

At the next day’s workout, the player said coach Harris told him that he was going to have to apologize to the team and he agreed to do so.

“I think I said, ‘I’m sorry for missing practice and I won’t let it happen again’ or something across those lines,” the player testified.

He said he later told some of the coaches over the phone that he would “get this straightened out” because they said some people had suggested that the coaches had tried to physically harm him, which he said was untrue.

“… Physically harming is a lot different. It’s not like they put their hands on me, but they forced me to eat it,” he said. “... After I got off the phone call, I thought to myself, like I can’t – like what they did to me was just too far extreme disrespect, so I just left it there.”

'I still have visuals of them yelling at me'

The player, who transferred to another school district last school year, said he’s still dealing with anxiety and thinks about the May 24 discipline every day.

He said he began seeing a counselor in June 2021 and has made progress. The weekly sessions are now monthly check-ins.

“… I still have visuals of them yelling at me and stuff to eat it, and I felt like my religion didn’t matter to them, and they threw it out the window, and I told them I didn’t eat it and they made me feel some type of way.”

He said he’s asked God for forgiveness for eating the pork residue.

The player blames his former coaches for describing him as a “troubled kid” in the media as the reason his offers to play Division I football fell through. He has committed to playing football at a Division II university this fall.

He said he has lost respect for the McKinley coaches he once admired.

“Before the pizza incident happened, I respected them and had love for them for what they’ve done for me throughout the years,” he said, citing the times they would drive him to practice and appointments and helped him get his knee surgery.

He recounted an encounter with one of the coaches at the mall recently.

“… It was nice seeing him, but like, what was going through my mind at the time was the disrespect that they put me through,” he testified.

When Pattakos asked him whether he planned to cut the coaches out of his life forever, the player said, “I mean, I don’t plan on rebuilding no relationship we had.”

Reach Kelli at 330-580-8339 or kelli.weir@cantonrep.com.

On Twitter: @kweirREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Former McKinley football player talks about the pizza punishment