Football coach Robert Garrett continues to be

Robert Garrett has the best job in America. He goes on his laptop each day from home, checks in and that’s all he’s required to do to get a full paycheck from the Los Angeles Unified School District.

It’s called “teacher jail” but at home.

“Who got it better than me,” he said.

March will mark the eighth consecutive month in which he’s been getting paid to keep home. The City Section’s winningest soccer coach with 300 profession wins and a longtime P.E. trainer at Crenshaw High was positioned on administrative depart last August on the eve of Crenshaw’s soccer opener.

Nothing has occurred since.

The district supposedly has 120 days to make a determination but that’s probably not a deadline based on past circumstances.

“Who knows, who cares,” Garrett said by cellphone. “It’s a good deal. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I haven’t had a break in 45 years.”

The LAUSD can apparently take as long as it needs to convey a conclusion to its investigation. Without him, Crenshaw still made it to the City Section Open Division soccer remaining.

But who is aware of how many college students this college 12 months have misplaced out on receiving a lesson from Garrett, who’s been head coach since 1988 and has been an important determine in the Crenshaw neighborhood.

Has Crenshaw forgotten about Garrett’s contributions? Nike, the shoe company, took over the campus lately re-making the gymnasium, cleansing all the banners hanging from the partitions, placing up indicators and utilizing the auditorium to make it a shoe store.

There’s a little inconsistency going on, the LAUSD permitting Nike to show off Crenshaw while one of its most profitable coaches and lecturers is banned from campus.

If LAUSD intends to keep this going on and on, Garrett is okay with it.

“It that’s the plan, let’s roll with it,” he said. “I haven’t heard nothing about anything. That’s OK. I have no complaints. I take the bitter with the sweet. I take the good with the bad. I take the ups with the downs. I’m resilient. I was born to coach. That’s my gift. I was put on this earth to coach. That’s the reason I went to college.”

LAUSD has so many lecturers on administrative depart at any one time (most likely a whole lot) that there’s no real deadline for choices being made. Former Huntington Park basketball coach Joe Reed was out for 14 months before being cleared but the college didn’t give him his basketball teaching place back, only his educating place. Until a coverage change in 2014, lecturers would have to show up at a district workplace and keep eight hours each day.

That’s when it was recognized as “teacher jail.” Now they get to keep home.

One of the more fascinating conditions concerned former Monroe and Granada Hills basketball coach Don Loperena, who the district tried to fire but then had to rehire after a decide ruled in his favor during an arbitration listening to. He went from trainer jail with pay to six months without pay until successful his case.

Yes, complaints ought to be investigated, but one thing tells me in the case of Garrett, whenever his scenario is finalized, he’s going to get his job back if he needs it and whether or not the district apologizes or not, he’s going to depart with his head held high realizing he did his best every day to make a distinction in the lives of college students, whether or not they appreciated him or not.

About the only certainty for this fall is that Garrett will return to teaching.

“I will be coaching somewhere, somehow,” he said. “I will be coaching on someone’s sideline — even if it’s Pop Warner.”