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Fernando Bryant is shown during his playing days at Alabama, where he was an All-SEC cornerback in 1998. (AL.com file photo)

Fernando Bryant

Former Alabama football star Fernando Bryant was recently fired from a high school coaching job, apparently over a social media post.

Bryant was hired last month as head football coach at Strong Rock Christian School in Locust Grove, Ga., an Atlanta suburb. However, less than three weeks later, he was fired.

Bryant told Atlanta TV station 11 Alive that his termination resulted from concerns about his past on social media. Specifically, one three-year-old photo of Bryant and wife Amber on Amber's Instagram account showed Fernando holding a bottle of alcohol.

Bryant provided the termination letter to 11 Alive, a portion of which read as follows:

"This letter will confirm that Strong Rock Christian School has made a decision not to move forward with your employment in the position of head coach of the football team and physical education teacher. As we discussed, after we made the offer to you, some within our parent community raised concerns regarding your family's public presence on social media and the internet and questioned whether the postings and information were consistent with our Christian values. We're sorry that our relationship had to end before it started. We wish you the best."

The 39-year-old Bryant told the station that the school informed him during the hiring process that all employees must be born-again Christians, but did not explicitly state alcohol was forbidden. Bryant said the photo -- which does not show Bryant or his wife drinking, but simply holding what appeared to be an unopened package containing a liquor bottle -- was taken three years ago during a magazine event (Amber Bryant was featured on the 2015 Bravo docu-series "Mother Funders," about the fundraising efforts of a local PTA).

"It is a little disheartening. I went through a long process," Bryant told 11 Alive. "I don't understand it from the standpoint of the day they hired me to the day they said they couldn't have me as their head coach. Nothing had changed. Nothing changed from the standpoint of anything they knew about me."

Bryant had been an assistant coach at Limestone College in South Carolina and on the high school level in the Atlanta area before taking the job at Strong Rock. In a Feb. 1 Henry Herald story announcing Bryant's hiring, Strong Rock athletic director Phil Roberts spoke glowingly of his new coach.

"I think Fernando will be a great addition to the athletic staff at Strong Rock," Roberts said. His playing experience speaks for itself, but as we went through the interview process, his relationships with Christ, student-athletes, and co-workers are what convinced us that he could be successful here. I'm excited to develop the next phase of strengthening our football program with a leader like Fernando Bryant."

Bryant played cornerback at Alabama from 1995-98, and was a first-team All-SEC pick as a senior. A first-round pick of the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars in 1999, he played 10 years in the league with four teams and won a Super Bowl ring with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2008, his final season.