Clint Layng is out as Jefferson High School’s head football coach after the school’s Board of Trustees voted 4-1 last week not to offer Layng a contract to coach for the 2022-23 school year—and the board will hold a special meeting on the coaching position at 7 p.m. on Monday, May 2, in the north gym.
The trustees did not offer reasoning for their votes or discuss Layng in the meeting; employee rights written into state law and board policy dictate that employees must be notified if their performance will be evaluated at a meeting, and such evaluations generally take place in a closed session. But trustees can vote on whether to offer an employee a contract without discussing employee performance.
The vote took place during the board’s regular monthly meeting April 19 as the board was reviewing staff recommendations of which district employees to offer employment contracts for the upcoming school year. Employees are generally approved for contract offers in groups, divided into certified, classified and administrative personnel. However, trustees can request to vote on individual employees.
In a phone call Monday evening, Board Chair Cami Robson said that “it’s not uncommon to break those coaches out individually” for contract offer votes.
Robson said on Monday she had “no prior knowledge” that trustees would vote on coaches individually, or that a majority of trustees would vote to end Layng’s tenure as coach. Layng, who was head coach for 11 years, remains a physical education, weightlifting and driver’s education teacher at the school.
The head coach position paid $5,100 last year. The contract runs all year, from July 1 through June 30.
In a brief emailed statement Tuesday, Layng wrote: “All I want to say is thank you to all the people that have supported me from all over the state of Montana to Dickinson, North Dakota. From former players to current players and coaches, it’s been awesome and it’s really helped me out.”
Trustee Larry Rasch, who voted not to offer Layng a new contract, said that, to his knowledge, the vote was not discussed or planned ahead of the meeting. Trustees Buster Bullock, Kyrie Russ and Dani Morris, who also voted against offering Layng a contract, did not respond to emails and voicemails requesting comment for this story. Trustee Bryher Herak, who cast the lone vote in Layng’s favor, also did not reply to requests for comment.
“There was nothing discussed that I am aware of. The board has discussed the football program numerous times over the course of the last nine, 10 years,” Rasch said. “But there was no prior discussion that I am aware of.”
The decision to oust Layng contradicted the school administration’s recommendation to offer him a contract for next school year.
Superintendent Tim Norbeck said in a phone call Monday that “the administration recommended all of them for rehire,” referring to all of the district’s coaching staff. He said Layng had “done a good job with the program. We’ve had success. They’ve had a great amount of success this year.” Norbeck, finishing his ninth year as superintendent, said he was blindsided by the vote.
Dan Sturdevant, the school’s athletic director, said he had “no clue at all” that the board might vote not to renew Layng’s contract, noting that he, Norbeck and Principal Mike Moodry were part of the evaluation process that led to the recommendation to offer Layng a contract for next year.
“I just don’t know the reasoning. I don’t know what the reasoning was for it,” he said in a call Monday. “I haven’t really heard any. I mean, you hear the normal, ‘They didn’t play my kid enough,’ but that’s with every sport. But it was just a total shock to me.”
Sturdevant, who has worked for JHS for 13 years and has covered Panther sports for The Monitor for 32 years, said he learned of the board’s decision “that night, by people calling me.”
“I think he’s done a great job here,” Sturdevant said of Layng’s tenure as coach.
Asked why he voted not to offer Layng a new contract, Rasch said in a call Monday that “the football program really has not come along to—it hasn’t progressed in the same direction that the school has in the last 10 years, the direction that the school itself has been going.”
Asked to clarify what direction he believed the school is going and the team is not, Rasch said that “I’m going to leave it at that.” He had opened the phone call by stating that “we’re still working on some stuff. I don’t feel good at the moment commenting about it. We should have a board meeting in the next week or two.”
Precipitating the vote, Bullock, who represents Boulder, requested to break out the coaching staff into individual votes on each coach employed by the district. All coaches except those for spring sports, which are ongoing and have not reached postseason evaluations, were up for possible contract offers.
When the board reached Layng, Herak, who represents Basin, made a motion to offer him a contract for next year. Russ seconded the motion. Herak voted to offer Layng a contract. Bullock, Russ, Rasch and Morris all voted against offering Layng a contract. Justin Willcut, a trustee representing Montana City, was absent. Russ, Rasch and Morris are at-large trustees.
“This is new territory for me,” Robson, the board chair, said after the vote. The board chair generally only votes in the event of a tie.
The vote came as a shock to Layng’s players, many of whom learned of the dismissal of their longtime coach via Twitter—jarring news a few months after what they described as a strong season.
The Panthers made it to the state class-B semifinal last fall despite losing key players, including Quarterback Braden Morris, to injury. Morris, a senior this year, said in a call on Monday that, “not after last season, I would have never guessed anything like this could’ve happened.”
He said he learned about the board’s decision via a tweet from Bill Foley, a Butte-based sportswriter, and “I had to start asking around just to see if it was real.”
Joey Visser, a senior defensive back, said he also learned the news about his former head coach from Twitter.
“I thought it was fake at first, honestly. I thought it was for sure fake, and then I looked into it more,” he said in a phone call Monday. Referring to a group chat that includes most of the team’s upperclassmen, he said, “The chat was insane. We have a big group chat and it was going insane. Everybody was like, there’s no way, why are they doing this? And they were kind of surprised they would make a decision like that after all he’s done for us.”
Layng, Visser said, “cares about you as a person a lot, not just the sports side of it, but as you, yourself—almost like a son.”
Morris and Visser each separately said that they had no idea ahead of last week’s meeting that Layng’s contract might not be renewed.
The board voted to retain all other coaches, but not all coaches received unanimous support from the board.
Bullock voted against offering contracts to Assistant Football Coaches Joe Michaud and Josh Morris, as well as Boys Basketball Head Coach Anthony Connole and Boys Basketball Assistant Coach Bruce Binkowski.
Morris voted against offering contracts to Binkowski, as well as Girls Basketball Assistant Coach Cassidy Parsons, who is also the school’s Family, Career and Community Leaders of America advisor.
