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A high
school hall-of-fame and Christian wrestling coach in
Dearborn, Mich., claims he was muscled out of his
long-tenured coaching job by the school’s principal, a
devout Muslim, because the administrator was furious
over a student wrestler who had converted to
Christianity from Islam.
Gerald Marsazalek has coached wrestling for 35 years at
Dearborn Public Schools, amassing more than 450 wins
and, in addition to being added to the Michigan High
School Athletic Association Hall of Fame, was named
“Sportsman of the Year” by the All-American Athletic
Association.
Despite Marsazalek’s success, however, Principal Imad
Fadlallah of Dearborn’s Fordson High School ordered the
administration not to renew the coach’s contract,
allegedly in retaliation over the student’s conversion
and to continue a campaign of flushing Christianity out
of the school.
“We are getting a glimpse of what happens when Muslims
who refuse to accept American values and principles gain
political power in an American community,” said Richard
Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More
Law Center, which is representing Marsazalek. “Failure
to renew coach Marszalek’s contract had nothing to do
with wrestling and everything to do with religion.”
Marsazalek is suing both the principal and the school in
the U.S. District Court of Eastern Michigan, seeking
back pay, injunctive and declaratory relief, damages,
and to be reinstated as coach of the wrestling team.
According to lawsuit documents, Principal Fadlallah’s
retribution against the Christian coaches serving
Fordson High began in 2005, after Marsazalek’s volunteer
assistant coach, Trey Hancock, led a non-school
sanctioned and independent summer wrestling camp.
Hancock, who is also pastor of the Dearborn Assembly of
God and parent to one of the wrestlers, reportedly
shared his beliefs at the camp and baptized a Muslim
Fordson student into the Christian faith.
That fall, Fadlallah fired Hancock and ordered the
volunteer coach not to have further contact with the
student wrestlers. “Subsequently, in full view of
students and faculty,” the lawsuit states, “Fadlallah
approached the young Fordson student who had chosen to
be baptized a Christian at Hancock’s summer wrestling
camp, punched the student and advised the student he had
‘disgraced his family’ by converting to Christianity
from Islam.”
According to a statement from the Thomas More Law
Center, Dearborn is one of the most densely populated
Muslim communities in the United States. An estimated
30,000 of its 98,000 residents are Muslims, and roughly
80 percent of the student population of Fordson High
School is Arabic, many of whom are also Muslims.
Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges, Fadlallah then banned
Hancock from entering the school, ordered Marszalek to
“keep Hancock out of the building” and even banned the
Hancock family from helping out at school concession
stands, even though Hancock’s son was an All-State
wrestler on Fordson’s team.
On or about Thanksgiving Day 2007, Hancock came to the
school to register his son for an activity, an offense
against Fadlallah’s orders, the lawsuit claims, which
led to a vocal confrontation between the principal and
Marszalek, who was allegedly accused of failing to
enforce Hancock’s banishment.
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