AP and staff reports

BOGUE CHITTO, Miss. – Wide receiver Scott Edwards says high school football and prayer go hand-in-hand on Friday nights and no court can change that.

The 16-year-old son of a Baptist preacher and many of his classmates at Bogue Chitto High are counting on fans in this little Mississippi community to restore prayer to the stadium legally.

The students’ effort is part of a grass-roots movement to encourage ”spontaneous” prayer as a way to get around a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

The high court ruling in June came in a Texas case brought by two families – one Catholic and one Mormon – who challenged a school policy of letting students elect someone to lead the benediction.

Vidalia High School football coach Dee Faircloth said his team has always begun games with a prayer and will likely continue to do so.

&uot;We’ll do something,&uot; he said. &uot;It’s hard to teach an old dog like me new tricks. They’ll probably have to come get me.&uot;

Public prayer is not an issue at most Mississippi private schools.

&uot;I feel sorry for public school kids who aren’t able to pray in school, and I’m thankful that in private schools we’re allowed to,&uot; said Trinity High School football coach David King. &uot;Being a Christian, I couldn’t imagine playing a game without praying before and after.

Adams County Christian School Head Coach Bo Swilley said although there is religious freedom in the United States, football and prayer should not be separated.

&uot;This country was founded as a Christian nation, and I am so pleased everyone can come here to worship the way they want to,&uot; Swilley said. &uot;When you call yourself one nation under God and don’t allow prayer before football games, you are doing dangerous things.&uot;

Football fan John Hart, who plans to attend Friday night’s Bogue Chitto game, said people who don’t want to pray have two options: ”They can shut their ears or go somewhere else.”

David Ingebretsen of the American Civil Liberties Union said what is being planned is illegal.

”It seems to me that a planned spontaneous prayer cannot be spontaneous and it violates the court’s ruling,” Ingebretsen said. ”If this planned, spontaneous prayer happens, it forces everyone there to hear that prayer or to participate in it.”

The movement, which has gained momentum over the past couple of weeks, was spearheaded in Mississippi by radio talk-show host Paul Ott, who used his syndicated call-in program, ”Listen to the Eagle,” to get his message out on stations in Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas.

Ott, who sees the removal of prayer from schools as the cause of many of the nation’s ills, said he consulted with lawyers and believes individual participation is the key to avoiding a legal confrontation.

”I don’t know who’s going to start it. I think it will be the students,” he said. ”We don’t think this is breaking the law, but if it is breaking the law, I don’t think they’re going to take thousands of people to jail.”

Jim Keith, the attorney for the school district, said as long as the school isn’t orchestrating the prayer, there’s no harm done. ”If fans are sitting in the stand, and they want to branch out and say the Lord’s Prayer, or some prayer to Allah or whoever, they can do that,” Keith said.

In Asheville, N.C., churchgoers are making a similar push for ”spontaneous” prayer at high school games. In South Carolina, crowds plan to gather around the goal post and in the bleachers to recite the Lord’s Prayer before high school games.

Elsewhere in Mississippi, people in Hattiesburg and Tupelo plan to distribute fliers urging fans to pray at football games in those communities, said J.D. Simpson of First Priority, a national campus ministry for junior high and high schools.

And the American Family Association, a conservative group in Tupelo, is also urging students and spectators at high school games across the country to recite the Lord’s Prayer.