Arizona High School Football Coach Gets Caught Sharing Game Plans With Opponents

Justin Hager, a former high school football coach and girls basketball coach for Mountain Pointe High School in Arizona, has been leaking game plans to opponents according to Mountain Pointe and the Tempe Union High School District via USA Today. The school district was able to trace Hager’s email address after being notified of a coach sharing game plans. Hager was hired by the school district in 2017 and recently resigned his position. However, the reason for his resignation is not for the sharing of game plans, it’s the fact he was able to land another job.

“Regarding MP [Mountain Pointe], I don’t have a comment,” Hager wrote in a text message. “Excited for another challenge and moving forward.”

Hager was an assistant coach on the football team and was the head coach on the basketball team. USA Today said the school district discovered “hundreds” of emails from the account to opposing coaches over the last three years. The emails included “protected information about formations, game plans, signals and player eligibility with opposing coaches,” according to a release by the district.

“Our entire campus is shocked at these findings,” Mountain Pointe principal Tomika Banks said in a release from the Tempe district. “It is the responsibility of all adults on a high school campus to act with integrity and to put students first in all we do.”

Head football coach Rich Wellbrock also released a statement about Hager.

“I am at a loss as to why someone would hurt kids in this way,” he said. “The entire coaching staff at Mountain Pointe is deeply troubled that a trusted adult in our program would actively work against the success of our students.”

Mountain Pointe was able to find out about Hager through another school. Vernon Fox, the head football coach at Las Vegas Faith Lutheran High School, was the first to reach out to Mountain Pointe. He told Wellbrock about the email he received. USA Today said Wellbrock knew it was happening, but he didn’t know which coach was doing it.

“From our perspective, we didn’t want to be a part of having an unfair advantage,” Fox told The Arizona Republic. “I just wanted to let the head coach know. I didn’t want to be a part of something like that.”