hooters-beaverton-2004.jpg

Hooters is the intended destination for a Corbett middle-school football team party.

(Steve Nehl/The Oregonian)

Corbett Middle School football coach Randy Burbach, who planned an end-of-the-year team party at Hooters, said Tuesday that he believes he, his brother and his son won't be allowed back as coaches.

Burbach, a volunteer, said he considers himself and his assistants fired after the district athletic director sent parents a letter Monday telling them that the end-of-season party at Hooters was not condoned by school administrators. Athletic director J.P. Soulagnet wrote parents that he "cannot further support them in coaching roles here at Corbett based on the unwillingness to change the location of this event to a more appropriate spot."

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Burbach said he has no plans to cancel the party but will support players and families who opt not to attend. Those who objected -- some parents have said they won't let their children attend an event at the chain restaurant, where waitresses serve chicken wings and other pub food while wearing tight tank tops -- haven't contacted him, he said.

“I still do not feel what has been done is wrong,” he said. “I feel the restaurant, in my opinion, is an OK venue.”

Burbach’s team is part of Corbett Football, which serves about 75 players from third through eighth grades. Burbach, who owns Crown Point Refuse & Recycling and is not a school district employee, has served as president of the local boosters club and donated time and money to build athletic fields in the district.

Burbach has said he began planning the party, slated to include limo rides and food bought by the coach, more than a month ago and asked players to notify their parents. He hadn’t heard, he said, any objections until this past weekend. He’s said it’s too late to change the venue and that he's already spent more than $1,000 planning the event.

As the Corbett coach, Burbach said, he turned around a middle-school football team that had been piling up losses. This year, the team only lost once, to a squad of eighth-graders from Parkrose.

Burbach said he still hopes his brother and adult son can coach, though he sounded doubtful. His brother, Rich, and son, Christopher, served as the team’s assistant coaches this season.

“That’s not fair,” he said. “You can fire me. I’m the one that’s responsible.”

He said his seventh-grade players had been encouraging him to coach next year. “Obviously, it’s not going to happen now,” he said.

Corbett Superintendent Randy Trani said Burbach already had completed this season’s work. He said Soulagnet has the authority to recommend coaches and has stated he won’t recommend Randy Burbach for the coaching job next year.

The coaching positions are considered volunteer jobs by the district, though the booster club paid a total of $800 to the Burbachs this season. Randy Burbach said he gave that money to his assistants.

-- Eric Apalategui