Colquitt County High School football coach Rush Propst is seen on the sideline during a game in this undated photo. 

ATLANTA — A complaint that nearly took Georgia high school football coach Rush Propst out of the game for one year prompted rampant speculation over its source, with many fans looking to rival teams.

Turns out, the person who sparked the investigation was closer to home.

The county school superintendent at the time, Dr. Samuel DePaul, initiated the process, perhaps unwittingly, that led to the state Professional Standards Commission suspending Propst’s teaching certificate for a year.

Propst, a coach at Colquitt County High School, was benched for head-butting a player on the sideline of a televised playoff game last December against Mill Creek. The player was wearing a helmet. Blood could be seen streaming down the face of Propst, who had been wearing a visor.

The source of the complaint was revealed in the commission’s file on Propst, obtained through an open records request Wednesday.

The commission — which oversees teacher conduct in the state — released the file after reconsidering its suspension of Propst at a July meeting and settling instead on a reprimand. Propst has not missed any time at work.

Colquitt County school officials reached much the same conclusion when the incident happened.

“In the future, behavior such as this should not occur as it gives the wrong impression,” Principal Stephanie Terrell wrote in a letter to Propst, dated Dec. 7, which was included in the file.

“If it occurs again, it will be construed as insubordination and will result in additional consequences,” she added.

DePaul’s role was met with surprise Wednesday.

“I thought we were all on the same page, that it was a closed issue unless something else happened,” said former athletics director Kevin Giddens, who reviewed video footage of the head-butt at the time and met with Propst and Terrell the Monday following the game.

Giddens, who retired in February, said he reported details of the meeting to DePaul.

Things proved to be far from resolved, though.

In a Feb. 12 email to the commission, DePaul details how the district handled the matter. He also noted that the player involved and his family “thought the incident was comical.”

Reached by phone on Wednesday, DePaul, who left the school system the end of June, said he considered the letter a “report” — not a complaint.

He said he did not request an investigation.

Doug Howell, who is Colquitt County’s interim superintendent, said it’s also unclear to him how DePaul’s letter evolved into a complaint.

“They took it and ran with it that way,” he said. “But that was not the intention of this letter.”

Records show that John Grant, the commission’s assistant director of educator ethics, forwarded DePaul’s letter to commission staff, describing it as a complaint.

It had already received informal complaints, said Paul Shaw, who heads the commission’s ethics division.

Propst has explained the incident by saying he was trying to fire up the kicking team at a pivotal moment in the game. The Packers won that game and went on to win the state championship.

In addition to video of the head-butt, commission staff also reviewed clips of profanity-laden comments that Propst made during the MTV series “Two-A-Days,” which aired 10 years ago. The series followed Propst and his high school football team in Hoover, Alabama.

The file also included comments Propst made about the head-butt. In a story that appeared on the sports news site Maxpreps.com, he said, “After the head-butt, I think we allowed two first downs and won going away. I might have to head-butt someone every time if we get results like that.”

The commission’s file also shows the outrage that followed the commission’s decision to suspend Propst for a year.

It was inundated with email from Propst supporters, who questioned the five months between the incident and the commission’s decision to act. They also questioned why Propst was being punished when the player and his family had laughed off the incident.

Propst’s file included dozens of emails decrying the suspension, with several expressing concern that the penalty would be more damaging to the players than Propst.

Timmy Barnes, a former player and now a police officer who travels with the team, wrote that the commission is “punishing a program of hundreds of kids and a community who only has football.”

Others criticized the investigation as politically motivated, alleging that a competitor was using the commission to inflict harm on the reigning state champions.

One supporter, whose name was redacted, wrote that it was “all due to a bunch of butt-hurt north Atlanta high school teams!!!”

Propst said Wednesday that he never thought the complaint was from a competitor. “I’ve heard all along that it was an inside job,” he said.

He said he’s known for several weeks that DePaul filed the complaint, but he said he believes others were involved. He said he also felt misled, having been told the issue was settled.

Propst said Wednesday that he’s focusing on the upcoming season, which is less than three weeks away.

Fittingly, the first game is against Mill Creek. 

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jnolin@cnhi.com.