Former Washington State football head coach Nick Rolovich has lost his lawsuit regarding COVID-19 issues from his days with the Cougars. Rolovich was the head coach at Washington State during the height of the COVID pandemic, and he was fired for failing to comply with the state's vaccine mandate.

Nick Rolovich applied for a religious exemption to the vaccine mandate, but it was denied. Rolovich ended up filing a lawsuit against Washington State and claimed that he was discriminated against based on religious beliefs.

“Plaintiff frequently expressed secular concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine to friends, family members and coworkers,” The ruling stated, according to an article from The Athletic. “In the thousands of pages of discovery, Plaintiff does not invoke a religious objection to the vaccine. This alone is a basis for denying Plaintiff’s claimed religious objection.”

The judge ended up writing that Washington State having an unvaccinated head football coach would have “endangered the health and safety of the university community.”

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“The governor’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate was a critical measure to stem the spread of the virus during the pandemic,” Washington State said in a statement. “As the Court recognized, the overwhelming, undisputed evidence proved that allowing an unvaccinated head football coach to continue in his position during the height of the pandemic would have endangered the health and safety of the university community. Thus, the university’s decision to deny Mr. Rolovich’s exemption request and terminate his employment was consistent with the governor’s proclamation, our duty to protect the university community, and the law.”

Nick Rolovich's lawyer, E. Job Seese, noted that they are planning to appeal the ruling.

“We are obviously disappointed by Judge Rice’s ruling, and we intend to appeal it,” Seese said. “We believe that the trial court’s cursory analysis was in error on multiple issues and that the Ninth Circuit will agree that there was more than sufficient evidence for Coach Rolovich’s claims to proceed to a jury.”

Rolovich will be back in the coaching game next season as he was recently hired by Cal as a senior offensive assistant. He was the head coach of the Cougars during the 2020 and 2021 seasons, and since being fired from that position, he has not coached anywhere else.