ATLANTA — Ed Pilcher watched with amusement as Colquitt County High School’s visor-wearing Rush Propst head-butted a helmeted player on the sideline of a playoff game last December.

“I laughed when I saw it,” said Pilcher, the former Berrien High School coach. “I said, ‘Look a here, that’s that old school coach, there.’”

This reaction was not, however, shared by a state board that monitors educator conduct. The Professional Standards Commission voted five months later to suspend Propst’s teaching certificate for a year and take him out of the game. The commission plans to discuss his case again Thursday.

The penalty for the boisterous coach has raised questions about how far high school coaches should go to motivate players, and who is responsible for making sure those efforts don’t go too far.

Propst, the school’s director of football programs, has said he collided with his kicker as he tried to fire up the kicking team after his Packers pulled ahead of Mill Creek in the Dec. 4 game. Moments later blood could be seen streaming from the coach’s forehead.

A TV camera captured the head-butt and its bloody aftermath, and within hours the footage was on the news and circulating on the internet.

Pilcher said he views a one-year suspension as “too severe.” Other coaches have also called it excessive.

A one-week suspension, or even just a “letter in his file” might have quickly resolved the issue, Pilcher said.

“Something just to get his attention and say, ‘Be careful, coach.’ That’s all that had to be done because, hey, no one was hurt but him,” Pilcher said.

Pilcher, himself, avoided the commission’s gaze nearly 10 years ago when he was accused of slapping a student.

Pilcher had been demonstrating how to “slap box,” where opponents slap each other instead of throwing punches. His school district — Thomas County Schools at the time — suspended him for five days without pay.

It doesn’t appear that Propst was reprimanded locally. Colquitt County school officials have not commented on the issue, and Propst has withheld comment while he appeals the suspension.

The incident landed on the Professional Standards Commission’s radar after someone filed a complaint. That person’s identity will remain a secret until the case is concluded.

The board, which consists mostly of educators and school administrators, notified Propst in May that his certificate would be suspended for “inappropriate physical contact with a student.”

Propst’s peers, including active and retired high school coaches, criticized the penalty but also distanced themselves from the antics that landed Propst in trouble.

Jim Hughes, who preceded him at Colquitt County, said none of the coaches on his sideline would have been caught head-butting a player.

“In 40 years, I didn’t do that or allow it,” he said.

Irwin County High School coach Buddy Nobles quipped, “I’m not going to head-butt a kid, because I look bad enough as it is.”

Nobles, who has coached for 28 years, said he and his staff live by two rules: Don’t curse at a player, and don’t put your hands on a player.

The commission considers inappropriate contact to be anything that is “unnecessary, not required to protect that student’s or another’s safety, violent and/or abusive in nature, and/or any other contact outside the ‘normal’ teacher-student bounds as generally recognized by the profession.”

Propst has said the gash on his forehead was actually from a screw on the face mask of another player he bumped into immediately after the head-butt.

Back in December, Propst was quick to note that he’s hardly the first coach to head-butt a player.

Erk Russell, a longtime defensive coordinator for the University of Georgia, famously bloodied his own forehead after head-butting players.

Players at Georgia Southern University, where Russell was head coach in the 1980s, now ritualistically head-butt a bronze bust of the late coach before each game.

“Erk Russell did it, and he’s a hero,” said Jim Dickerson, who coaches at Clinch County High School. “Rush Propst did it, and he’s a dirt bag.”

In Hughes’ mind, however, that isn’t a healthy comparison.

High school coaches should be held to a different standard than their collegiate counterparts, he said.

“I’m a great believer in enthusiasm, and there are many different ways to motivate your players,” he said. “But when it comes to physical contact with high school athletes, I think we’ve gone too far.”

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jnolin@cnhi.com. Valdosta Daily Times Sports Editor Jamie Wachter contributed to this report.