SEATTLE (AP) — A Washington state high school football coach took advantage of his position when he prayed on the field after games, and he's not entitled to immediately get his job back, a federal appeals court said Wednesday.

The three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals unanimously held that Bremerton High coach Joe Kennedy's prayers did not constitute protected free speech because he was acting as a public employee, not a private citizen, when he conducted them.

"By kneeling and praying on the fifty-yard line immediately after games while in view of students and parents,...