Joseph Kennedy, the showboating Christian coach who led performative prayers at midfield after Bremerton High School football games, spent years demanding his old job back, and took his case all the way up to the Supreme Court… Yet now that he has the opportunity to work with the team again, he’s nowhere to be found, according to a column in the Seattle Times.

All of this was predictable. Before the Supreme Court issued its awful ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton, a group of atheists argued that the entire case ought to be tossed out before the justices could weigh in on the merits.

An amicus brief filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Center for Inquiry, the American Humanist Association, and the Secular Coalition for America made the argument that the case was moot because Joseph Kennedy wouldn’t even benefit from a victory.

Kennedy had argued that he lost his job because he wanted to deliver a quiet Christian prayer at midfield after games, but he was persecuted because of that. All of that was exaggerated or untrue. He was never actually fired. The prayers weren’t “quiet.” And the concern was far more about the coercive nature of his performative prayers, not his ability to privately pray. But the only reason the Bremerton case was in front of the Supreme Court at all was because, theoretically, their decision was the only way Kennedy could regain his job.

The atheists argued the case was moot because a ruling in Kennedy’s favor wouldn’t change his situation… largely because Kennedy had already packed up, moved far away from Bremerton (Washington), and was never seriously going to become a football coach there again.