The salacious allegations against former Stanhope Elmore football coach and Alabama football player Jeff Foshee drew headlines two years ago.
The state Department of Education accused Foshee of "immoral" behavior, including a pay-for-play scheme with another teacher to make sure a football player remained eligible by offering $500 and "sex or a sex act, if she would help."
Today, nearly two years later, Foshee remains exiled from coaching and recently talked to veteran sports reporter Tim Gayle, of riverregionsports.com, and detailed for the first time how his Stanhope Elmore career ended in controversy. He vehemently denied allegations he promoted academic fraud.
"This kid's got an IEP, an individual educational plan (for special education students)," Foshee said in the interview. "In that IEP, it allowed him to go back and make up any work that he missed and any tests he had failed. He read on a fourth-grade level, so I sat down and asked (the teacher about him). If he has to go to summer school, he has to go to summer school. But I'd love for him not to have to go so I can take him to (summer football) camp. I told her if she can do all that (help him make up any work or tests in compliance with his IEP), I'll pay you. I told her I'd give her $500, money out of my account. This wasn't school money or booster club money, it was my money.
"We were joking around, there's about eight to 10 of us that eat lunch there all the time, and I was just joking, 'I'll make the rest of it up in sex,'" he continued. "We laughed and went on. I really wanted to help this kid. I asked her if she would do that and she said it was going to be so much extra work on her. In my head, I'm thinking, 'What difference would it be if I was a parent paying her to tutor him?' He's a good football player that I had to kick off the team as a junior. He had a great spring (in football). I helped all of them but this one I really wanted to help. I'm all he's got, football's all he's got. His grandmother is raising him, mama and daddy aren't there. So that's what I did.
"So I gave her $300. How it got told I don't know. They said, 'He flopped out money on the table.' That didn't happen. We were at a restaurant. The main thing I want to get out there is grades were not changed. I never asked her to change grades. Special Ed teachers can't. That was not an issue. And there was never a sexual relationship."
Foshee resigned in June 2016 and cited burnout after 16 seasons as head coach and 105 wins. He had replaced his father, whose name is on the stadium after winning more than 200 games from 1975-99.
Then, in July 2016, the AHSAA hit Stanhope Elmore with a $300 fine and a year's probation after Foshee "committed academic fraud with the assistance of a special education teacher by providing monetary incentives to the teacher enabling the student-athlete to meet AHSAA academic requirements for participating the sport of football," according to the AHSAA letter to the school.
Foshee didn't lose his teaching certificate, but he was placed on probation for 18 months when the state Department of Education closed his case in March 2017.
In the interview with riverregionsports.com, Foshee blames former administrators for ousting him and bemoans the fact he hasn't been able to land another coaching job. He currently works in sales, according to the story.
He also said he's puzzled to understand why he hasn't gotten a second chance.
"That's what I can't understand," Foshee said. "I admitted to giving money to a special ed teacher to follow the IEP to help a child out of the kindness of my heart. I gave her money and I had to pay a $100 ethics violation fine. I did it, I paid her money. Not to change grades. I paid her money to help the kid. From Day One, that's what I did, that's my story."
Stanhope Elmore has gone 9-12 in the two seasons since Foshee departed under two head coaches. The Mustangs have also suffered a losing season for five straight years.
Foshee Butler Letters by Josh Bean on Scribd