Niles West football coach remains suspended despite pleas from players, parents

SKOKIE (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - Football players at Niles West High School lined up during a school board meeting, pleading with board members to reinstate their suspended coach.

The coach, Nick Torresso, was placed on leave last week. His players, who call him “Coach T” want him back, and so do parents. Both spoke during a board meeting.

“He turned my life around,” one player said. “He has given me guidance throughout all of high school and is helping me and countless other people, and when I was young, I lost a parent, and I always missed that part of family, and this team is like my family, and the dad is gone, and we have no idea why.”

“His absence feels like a death,” one mother said. There is despair and sorrow. No one is perfect, but he has sound judgment, and, as a parent, I’ve witnessed it for four years.”

The suspension of the coach, who’s also a special education teacher, followed a parent’s remarks that her son was forced to perform excessive exercises after ankle surgery.

She said it caused excruciating pain, re-injury and vomiting, and her son was told to “stop feeling sorry for himself.”

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