CHARLOTTE - Two weeks ago, David Garrett was fired from his position as Garinger High School's boys soccer coach.
“I was called into the office, it was a very short conversation,” Garrett said Thursday. "I didn’t ask any questions, I said I respect your authority, I shook their hands and walked out."
School administration told him they were quote, "going in a different direction," and offered no reason for his firing, according to Garrett.
His players though, didn’t need a reason – they had heard enough, and quit in protest. A team that Garret had helped build over the past six years as coach, was no more.
"We turned a program that was consistenly at the bottom, losing, into a regional power," he said. “We started out with a program with 13 players that were academically eligible, barely enough to fill the team. This past year, we had over 30 kids that were academically eligible and we had to turn kids away.”
Garrett is also the founder of One7 Ministries, a non-profit with a homebase in a tough east Charlotte neighborhood, where young, underprivileged kids gather every week to have fun, food and experience the family they don’t have at home.
Even though they have disbanded at Garinger, many of Garrett’s players help at One7, praying and playing with other young kids – in an effort to help them find their own way.
One of those players, is Garinger senior, Nooh Abbas.
“I was homeless at the age of 11," said Abbas, originally from Iraq. “When I met [Garrett], he took me in. He took me in and just opened his arms out to me when I really, really needed help, you know - that meant the world to me, he became my dad."
Garrett introduced Nooh to soccer, and is now his legal guardian. Nooh was living in a car when Garrett stepped in, and changed his life. He said Thursday that he and his teammates quit, out of loyalty.
"They quit because of family, what David meant to us," Abbas said. “Really, David is like a father figure for us. When your family is taken away from you, you do whatever you can to be with them."
"I think the success came from love, I mean we created a family bond," Garrett said. "We came into the lives of these boys when many of them were homeless, many of them had been abused. We were just a consistent loving family to these guys."
Both the players and Garrett told Spectrum News they don’t harbor any bitter feelings toward the district or Garinger High School administration for his firing.
We reached out to CMS officials as well as the school’s athletic director for comment, but neither party responded to our request.