Two Houston-area football players were kicked off the team after they protested during the national anthem at a game Friday, the same night two entire Dallas ISD teams knelt during the anthem, according to the Houston Chronicle.

After the anthem, the players, of the Victory and Praise church team, were told by the head coach to take off their uniforms and were kicked off the team, the Chronicle reports.

Cedric Ingram-Lewis raised his fist and his cousin Larry McCullough, who are both black, knelt ahead of the game against Providence Classical.

Head coach Ronnie Mitchem is a former Marine and pastor of Victory and Praise Worship Center in Crosby, about 20 miles outside Houston. To play with the team, students must be home-schooled or attend a charter or private school that does not offer football, according to the church website.

"He told us that disrespect will not be tolerated," Ingram-Lewis said to the newspaper. "He told us to take off our uniform and leave it there."

Lewis' mother, Rhonda Brady, supported the boys' actions, but called the coach's actions out of line, according to the Chronicle. She doesn't want them back on the team because "a man with integrity and morals and ethics who truly lives by that wouldn't have done anything like that."

"Actions speak louder than words," Brady said to the newspaper. "So, for him to do what he did, that really spoke volumes and I don't want my kids or my nephew to be around a man with no integrity."

Mitchem said the pair left him no choice because he didn't want others to join in on kneeling for the anthem and flag. He thought kneeling for the flag would disrespect veterans. He preferred players protest in other ways, like kneeling in the end zone or writing a paper about the issue, the Chronicle reported.

"I'm a former Marine. That just doesn't fly and they knew that," Mitchem said to the Chronicle. "I don't have any problem with those young men. We've had a good relationship. They chose to do that and they had to pay for the consequences."

Two entire Dallas ISD football teams, Spruce and Lincoln, knelt during the national anthem at separate games.

Earlier this week, Dallas ISD athletic director Gil Garza said that he would prefer if athletes from the school district stood during the national anthem. But he also said that he didn't have the right to tell students not to protest.

"I don't really think these kids would be protesting the flag and the men and women who have served," Garza said. "I think they would be emulating what they see on TV, and I'm not so sure how many kids really understand everything."

Players from Spruce knelt in the end zone at Seagoville's James Ray Henry Stadium, while their opponents, from Conrad, stood next to them.

Players from Lincoln knelt along the sideline stretching from the end zone to the 15-yard line during the anthem at Forester Field. Their opponent, Life Waxahachie, stood.

Garza, who is retiring in December, went on to say, "But who am I? I'm just another human being. I'm just another American. I don't have the right. That's what America is — freedom. I don't have the right to impose my will on anybody."