A modern-day David and Goliath drama and a love story of a man and wife with painful pasts becoming one in the fight for freedom and keeping a commitment Kennedy had made to God.
It seemed like a small thing — an assistant coach kneeling briefly on the field after high-school football games, silently giving thanks to God. For seven years, it was no big deal. But in 2015, someone from an opposing school mentioned the practice to the principal of Bremerton High School where Joe Kennedy coached. He was told to stop. He did not.
Kennedy and his wife Denise shared with the Register that his refusal to stop praying on the field cost him his job and led to an eight-year legal battle. But in 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor. “I did this for God and for the rights to freedom that I fought for 20 years as a Marine,” Kennedy explained.
The story has been made into the movie Average Joe, which hits theaters this week on Oct. 11, and the book Average Joe: One Man’s Faith and the Fight to Change a Nation. It is a modern-day David and Goliath drama and a love story of a man and wife with painful pasts becoming one in the fight for freedom and keeping a commitment Kennedy had made to God.
Kennedy was a brand-new Christian when the fight began. An abusive family life led to a rebellious childhood, which he reigned in during almost 20 years as a U.S. Marine. Yet God did not seem real to him back then.
He and Denise met when they were 9 years old. Kennedy was smitten, but she kept things at the friendship level, and they even married other people. After Denise escaped an abusive marriage, and Joe was divorced, they got back in touch and soon married. But the marriage became rocky.
“One day, I said to God, ‘If you give me my wife, I’ll give you my life,’” he recalled. “I was trying to figure out my relationship with God.” Shortly afterwards, watching the movie Facing the Giants and seeing the coach praying on the 50-yard line inspired him to do the same. He had just recently been recruited as the high-school assistant coach.
“‘I’m going to give you glory after every game,’ I told God,” he explained. “It was just a few seconds, maximum 30 seconds.” The players who looked up to their coach began following him on to the field — until the Washington state school district gave him a letter in the eighth year to stop praying with the team.
The coach told his players, “This is my fight,” and despite their protests, he asked them not to follow him to the field. “Then they moved the goalpost,” Kennedy explained, adding that him visibly praying was at issue. “I was told, ‘People can still see you, so you can’t pray on the field.’”
After initially acceding to the district, Kennedy changed his mind: “This is what I fought for; they weren’t going to take away my rights.” His fight became well known, spreading through social media.
Following Bemerton’s home game against Centralia on Oct. 16, 2015, Kennedy knelt alone at the 50-yard line. When he opened his eyes, he was surprised to see coaches and players from the opposing team and members of the public kneeling beside him. “I was shocked,” he said. “It was an awesome show of freedom of the speech.”
Two days later, Kennedy was put on paid administrative leave and barred from “participating in any capacity in the BHS football program.”
“ I never wanted any problems,” he explained. “I just wanted to give thanks for my team out there.” He connected with First Liberty, a legal firm dedicated to defending religious liberty. They defended him through two negative lower-court decisions — and all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Denise was supportive during the two lower court trials, despite her job with the school district as a human-resource supervisor. “When Joe was told, ‘No, you don’t have the right to do this a second time,’ I thought, ‘Okay, we’re done,’” she recounted. “It had been awkward at work. Staff was told not to engage in conversation with me about the Kennedy case.”
Attending school-board meetings was part of Denise’s job. The room was often filled with angry people saying things like: “Religion has no place here! Your husband is trying to indoctrinate our kids!” Sometimes, people came up to her secretly at work to whisper they supported him and were praying for him. Yet there were also longtime friends who gave them the cold shoulder.
“When I learned that Joe was appealing to the Supreme Court, I felt he was going too far,” Denise said. “I thought, ‘I’ve known Joe since he was 9. This is the rebellious kid; this is the Marine; this is the fighter trying to teach them a lesson.”
“Joe was trying to explain why he was doing it, but I was not hearing him. I was inconsolable,” she continued. “Joe told me, ‘We need a break; I’ve got to go.’ As he left, he fell down the stairs and the railing broke. He was holding his phone up to me. I thought he had a heart attack and wanted me to call 911.”
Instead, it was a video message from Alex Kendrick, producer and star of Facing the Giants standing at the 50-yard line used in the movie: “I just want to let you know that we are praying for you and are so thankful that you are taking a stand.”
“The Holy Spirit at that point opened my eyes,” Denise recalled. “He showed me that my husband was taking a stand for God and doing it for the right reasons. From that moment on, I was all-in. The tide changed for us and our marriage.”
“The Bible said to become one,” Kennedy said. “And at that point, we became one under God’s umbrella.”
“I came from an unwanted pregnancy,” he added. “I could have been aborted, so I began fighting still in the womb. That’s where this story started. And my wife went through abuse growing up. It’s amazing that two people like us could make a difference in the world.”
Together, the Kennedys have five children. They moved to Florida in 2020 to help care for Denise’s father. After eight years of legal battles, the lawyers and the school district settled on $1,775,000 in attorney fees, which the district will pay out in the next three years. The Kennedys never asked for a single cent because, for them, this fight was solely for God and the cause of freedom.
“This is a great time to be alive,” Kennedy said. “God has something to say. It’s everyday Americans who can make a difference just by standing up and showing up.”
Denise shared that they are both amazed at how God has used them. “Joe and I look at each other every day and say, ‘Do you realize there’s a movie coming out about our lives?’ Our lives are like a jigsaw puzzle with 500 pieces dumped all over, and God put them together in such a surprising way.”
WATCH
Average Joe is rated PG-13 for some thematic material and violence; it is in theaters Oct. 11. See the trailer here.
