Would you draw this line in the sand?

No.

Well, if no one was informed that it was a rule, then the coach has no case. I honestly wouldn't care about a kid dying his hair, unless it was for an inappropriate cause. I might be the guy to actually propose that if a few dye their hair, the whole team should.

Our wrestling program goes to the state finals every year pretty much (won 5 since 2000, back-to-back last two years). Every time the playoffs begin, all the wrestlers dye their hair the same color as a tradition (usually either blonde or black). So pretty much every year, these kids are dying their hair.

That HC must have a lot of free time on his hands to fight that battle.

We don't allow hair that's dyed funky colors here but it does get out of hand. We had a freshman show up who had pink hair but didn't understand the rule. She was shipped to detention and spent most of a week there because she couldn't get the dye out of her hair. She stays at the school dorms during the week (private school) so it was really hard for her to wash it out.

Rules like that just don't make any sense to me. I have to have something more important to worry about than what color some kid's hair is.

Why create an issue and distraction and garner ill will from parents over something this silly? Pick your battles and dump your "unwritten" rules for clearly stated written ones.

That is stupid.

Glad this team has so few issues that they can even fight this battle. God bless 'em, if this was the biggest problem we had I'd wake up well rested every morning.

Yep, I misread that coachgrizz, but yes I think we're in agreement on the issue.

If the coach is going to bench those six guys for that, they must not be very good players

I know the Head Coach of the program in this situation. I actually began my coaching career there several years ago. There is MUCH MORE to this than the news story is showing. It involved the group of kids telling the coach "we're going to do ___ and ____ and ____" with the hair dying thing being the last of it. The coach told them if you do any of these things, you will not play and they did it to spite him. The coach is a good Christian man who is in a place that is known for the community treating football as 2nd class sport. The parents of these kids called the news station telling their side of the story, the HC refused to comment and thus it ended up as a 1 sided story in the media outlets

Are they? Or are they just doing something to draw attention to themselves separate from the team?

3rd hand info, but apparently a few kids dyed their hair back to their original color, others did not. Also 3rd hand, but I've been told they played.

Oh I figured that. The fact that it was an "exclusive" to that TV station shows that it wasn't a story till the parents decided to MAKE it one and shop around a human interest story. The media does that sometimes, looking for some controversy/different angles. Heck I was cited with possession of alcohol around 2 hours before my 21st birthday. Local reporter saw it in police reports (by time it was processed I was 21) and contacted me to do a story on it. Told them there was no story...