Chris Kluwe, former NFL punter for the Minnesota Vikings, says he was fired from his job as a high school football coach after he was taken into custody while engaging in “peaceful civil disobedience.”
Kluwe took to social media Thursday to announce his dismissal, which he says stems from protesting the Huntington Beach City Council’s decision to install a plaque at the Central Library with a Donald Trump-inspired motif.
The plaque, meant to celebrate the library’s 50th anniversary, made national headlines due to the inclusion of the acronym “MAGA,” a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
“Just got fired from being a freshman football coach, if you want to know what MAGA does to communities,” Kluwe wrote on Bluesky. “They don’t care about what helps people, because the school is certainly not going to find an ex-NFL player willing to coach there at that level, they only care about trying to hurt people.”
Kluwe was among dozens of protesters who attended the City Council meeting earlier this month to urge the council to abandon the plaque design in favor of something, as some urged, more inclusive.
In his impassioned speech, Kluwe denounced the “MAGA” movement as one that seeks to “erase trans people from existence,” “stands for resegregation and racism … censorship and book bans.”
“MAGA is profoundly corrupt, unmistakably anti-democracy, and most importantly, Maga is explicitly a Nazi movement,” Kluwe said at the time. “You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat, but that is what it is.”
He then proceeded to approach the council with his arms behind his back as he awaited officers to take him into custody. There was an audible cheer from the dozens of meeting attendees who came to oppose the plaque design.
Despite his arrest and a majority of dissenting public comments, the city council voted unanimously to approve the plaque with a slightly modified design and extra security.
A 15-year resident of Huntington Beach, Kluwe has been outspoken on social and political issues since retiring from the NFL in 2013. He has been an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and has criticized the league’s handling of controversial topics, including race and on-field protest.
His latest protest has apparently led to him losing his post-playing career as a freshman football coach at Edison High School.
KTLA reached out to the Huntington Beach Union High School District for comment regarding Kluwe’s firing but we have yet to receive a response.
On Friday, Kluwe continued to use his social media platform to denounce Trump and MAGA policies locally and globally.
“What’s happening here in HB is what’s happening to our nation as a whole,” he wrote in a post. “MAGA is not interested in listening to communities. MAGA only wants what makes themselves feel good, regardless of the cost to anyone else, and it will literally kill this country.”
Kluwe attended Los Alamitos High School and played collegiately at UCLA before signing with the Vikings as an undrafted free agent.
In the responses to his initial announcement about his firing, he received at least one job offer, which he politely declined.
