Washington State fires Rolovich over vaccine
Washington State has fired football coach Nick Rolovich after he declined to get vaccinated against COVID-19 despite a state mandate that required it unless he was approved for an exemption.
Two people with knowledge of the decision confirmed it to USA TODAY Sports but did not want to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly about it. Four assistant coaches also were fired Monday as vaccinated defensive coordinator Jake Dickert got tapped to become interim head coach, the two people said.
The university didn’t immediately confirm the status of Rolovich’s request for a religious exemption from the mandate. But Rolovich and other state employees faced a deadline Monday to save their jobs – either be fully vaccinated or obtain approval for an exemption.
Rolovich, 42, had confirmed on Oct. 9 that he was seeking such an exemption after USA TODAY Sports revealed he had filed an application for it and was not vaccinated, according to June Jones, his former coach at Hawaii. Jones told USA TODAY Sports he had pleaded with Rolovich to get vaccinated for the sake of his job and others.
Instead, Rolovich rejected that advice and now is no longer employed, culminating a self-inflicted career nosedive, less than two years after he arrived with promise on the Palouse in eastern Washington. After finishing 1-3 in his first season during the pandemic last year, his team is 4-3 this season after winning its last three games, including 34-31 Saturday against Stanford.
His contract at WSU ran through June 2025 and included terms about how he could be fired for legal cause, such as failing to follow university rules. The university did not immediately comment on that.
Rolovich also did not elaborate on his religious reasons for not getting the vaccine. He didn’t publicly confirm whether he identifies as Catholic after coming from a Catholic family background and attending a Catholic high school.
Meanwhile, his vaccination status became a growing national news story after he announced on Twitter in July that he had elected not to get vaccinated, making him the only major college head football coach to say so publicly. After that announcement, he then declined to discuss his vaccination status despite frequent questions about it amid a state mandate that put his high-profile job at risk during a public health crisis.
In the end, it’s not clear whose decision at WSU ultimately ousted him. According to university protocol, religious exemption requests are considered by a committee that determines whether to grant them without knowing the identity of the applicants.
If the committee denied such a request, the applicant then could be fired. But even if the committee approved such a request, the applicant then faced another hurdle: The applicant’s supervisor had to determine whether the unvaccinated employee would be able to perform his or her duties without risking the health of the community. If the answer to that was no, the applicant could be fired in that case, too.
The university didn’t say who made the decision.