Ringling football coach pleads no contest to outraging public decency; sentencing in March
Philip Koons, the principal and football coach for Ringling Public Schools in south-central Oklahoma, pleaded no contest Tuesday to a misdemeanor charge of outraging public decency.
Court documents show Jefferson County Associate District Judge Dennis Gay set a $5,000 bond for the 61-year-old Koons and set a sentencing date for March 12.
Gay signed a document accepting Koons’ plea, but did not sign another posted document that listed terms of a potential plea agreement. A box checked on the document indicated that Koons’ plea was accepted, but not the plea agreement, and that Koons maintained his plea without the plea agreement. Details about the nature of the plea agreement were not immediately available.
Shelby Shelton, an Oklahoma City attorney who has represented Koons in the case, did not immediately return a call for comment after business hours on Tuesday. Kent Southward, the superintendent for Ringling Public Schools, also did not immediately return a phone message left Tuesday night.
Dan Isett, a spokesman for the Oklahoma State Department of Education, said Tuesday he didn’t know if Koons’ teaching certification in the state remains active.
In 29 seasons of coaching at Tuttle, Clinton and Ringling, Koons compiled a 282-71 record, winning Class 3A titles with Tuttle in 2001 and 2005 and the Class A title with Ringling in 2019. He's a member of the Oklahoma Coaches Association Hall of Fame. But at each stop, Koons has faced criticism for his coaching methods.
Court records allege Koons used "profane, degrading and derogatory language towards student-athletes under his supervision" on the Ringling Blue Devils football team, which he began coaching in 2018. Several players alleged he bullied and intimidated them as the football team competed every year for a Class A title.
Some of those players told The Oklahoman Koons repeatedly used racist and homophobic slurs to refer to them and once required them to complete exercise drills while they were undressed in the locker room.
The allegations came to public light during a February 2023 school board meeting and led to a three-month inquiry by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Koons was initially suspended but was reinstated in June after investigators forwarded their report on to the district attorney.
He also was the high school and junior high principal in Ringling, a town of about 900 people.
Koons also had been accused of of misconduct during a previous coaching stop at Clinton, from which he resigned following rumors of an incident with players. In 2013, KFOR reported football parents wanted Koons fired from his coaching job in Tuttle, saying he called their son derogatory names and taunted him to the point that the child “wanted to commit suicide.”Koons is the second state championship-winning coach to face legal trouble in recent months. In November, Jeff Myers gave up his coaching job after the Kingfisher Public Schools district settled a federal lawsuit over hazing and bullying inside the football program for $5 million.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Ringling's Hall of Fame coach pleads no contest to misdemeanor charge
