A couple months ago, a popular [Duxbury High School] physical education teacher and assistant football coach named Harry Taylor was suspended for what was vaguely described as inappropriate physical contact and verbal abuse of a pair of football players. According to some players I talked to, Taylor told a couple of kids to stop doing something in the new gym, and when they didn’t he yelled at them and whacked one of them on the arm….

Taylor was fired this month, with most everybody in Duxbury still in the dark about what he did and why the punishment was so swift and severe.

That didn’t sit well with a lot of students who like Taylor. Some started wearing shirts and other items to school emblazoned with a T or “Free T,” often in duct tape.