"Joe Kennedy has never walked away from a fight. At times, that's been a problem. Abandoned as a baby, he grew up angry. Before he finished high school, he had been expelled from six schools, spent time in foster care, and been sent to a ranch for wayward boys. But his pugnacious streak led him to the U.S. Marine Corps, which turned his orneriness into moral courage, preparing him to defend freedom and truth on a stage he could never have imagined. Average Joe is the inspiring story--in his own words--of a fighter who wouldn't quit. Hired as a high school football coach in Bremerton, Washington, Kennedy found himself in a job he was born to do: teaching kids from hardscrabble homes on the wrong side of the tracks about discipline, integrity, and teamwork. But to his surprise, his habit of kneeling briefly on the fifty-yard line to give thanks to God after each game drew the disapproving attention of the school district. Ordered to stop, he found himself at the center of a controversy over a simple but important question: Does a citizen give up his right to religious freedom if he goes to work for the government? The answer to that question would define the First Amendment rights of all Americans for decades to come. Overnight, Kennedy found himself in the fight of his life, a legal battle that would last seven years and take him all the way to the United States Supreme Court. All americans--believers and nonbelievers alike--can be grateful that when their fundamental rights were at stake, there was an "average Joe" to fight for them" -- Book jacket flap.