WV Gov Justice ends flap over his rejected offer to coach high school team, but not without rebuke

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice is attempting to settle his dispute with a local school board that last month rejected a motion to hire the Republican governor as the boy’s basketball coach at Greenbrier East High School.

Justice on Tuesday withdrew from consideration as the boy’s coach at the school, where’s already the girls coach.

In a two-page letter to the Greenbrier Board of Education, Justice asked that a boys coach be named soon at the high school with practices for the 2021-22 season starting in a month, according to the Associated Press.

Last month the board, in a 3-2 vote, rejected a motion to hire Justice as boy's coach to fill the spot of a coach who resigned in July.

"We need to move forward," Justice wrote Tuesday. "Pick a coach. The kids deserve that, and I wish them all the success."

Justice served as the boys coach from 2010 to 2017, his first year as governor. He has coached the girls team since 2000, winning a state championship in 2012, the wire service also reports. Justice’s second term as governor runs through 2024.

The board reportedly rejected Justice’s offer to coach the boy’s team amid concerns he should devote his efforts to the state’s rising COVID-19 numbers, to which Justice also responded Tuesday.

"Other than GOD above and my family, I place my duties as Governor above all else," he said in the statement. "All I do is work, and I love my work, and I love the people of West Virginia, especially the kids."