DICKINSON, N.D. — A football player for a small North Dakota college says that he was kicked off the team after he was spotted kissing his much-older boyfriend in the press box during a game.
According to the Associated Press, 18-year-old freshman linebacker Jamie Kuntz was kicked off the North Dakota State College of Sciences Wildcats football team earlier this month after he and his 65-year-old boyfriend kissed in the press box during the team’s season opener against Snow College in Pueblo, Colo., over the Labor Day weekend.
Kuntz had suffered a concussion prior to the game, and was filming the game from the press box when the kiss was spotted by a teammate who then told the coaching staff.
When he was confronted about the kiss on the bus ride back to North Dakota, Kuntz admitted that he lied and said that the man he kissed was his grandfather. He later came clean about being gay to his head coach, Chuck Parsons.
According to a dismissal letter obtained by the AP dated September 3rd, Parsons told Kuntz that he was being kicked off the team for violating the team’s player manual guidelines, noting the section on “lying to coaches, teachers or other school staff.”
“This decision was arrived at solely on the basis of your conduct during the football game; and because you chose not to be truthful with me when I confronted you about whom else was in the box with you,” Parsons wrote. “Any conduct by any member of the program that would cause such a distraction during a game would warrant the same consequences.”
Kuntz told the AP that he doesn’t believe that lying had anything to do with his dismissal.
“I know if it was a girl in the press box, or even an older woman, nothing would have happened,” Kuntz, who is now looking to walk-on at another school, told the AP. “If it was an older woman, I would have probably been congratulated for it from my teammates.”
Click here for more on this story from the Associated Press and CNNSI.com.