Prayer for Seriously Injured Football Player A Mis-Use of School-Sponsored Time

On September 14th, Mission Hills High School linebacker Scott "Scotty" Eveland suffered severe head trauma during a football game and was rushed to surgery. At the September 28th game, members of both teams spontaneously began to prayer for the injured linebacker.

Michael Fleming, director of the 7 member, Center for Applied Critical Thinking, leaped on this act of compassion with a newspaper add reading "No more prayer sessions at football games" and is seeking legal counsel against school officials. Fleming's position is that praying for a severely injured student is a misuse of school-sponsored time and an establishment of a state-sponsored religion.

The assistance principle, Tim Heck, considered the event a spontaneous expression of individual student freedom and was not sanctioned by school officials or coaches.

Group alleges Eveland prayer on field may be unconstitutional