‘I couldn’t keep quiet’: The college coach exiled after standing up for players’ rights

John Shoop was a veteran of NFL and college coaching rooms. But when he started to question the status quo he found himself out in the cold

Every evening, in the dying twilight, a football coach without a team to call his own yanks on his boots and heads to the stable.

He shovels Chief and Traveler's manure, changes their water and restocks their hay. He brushes the horses' hair. He takes deep breaths, and he sits, and he tries to reconcile his activism with all it has cost him. He is not grooming the horses. The horses are grooming him.