LINDEN, TX –

Linden Police arrested a junior high school football coach Tuesday after they say he was forcing his players to take doses of methamphetamine before practice.

According to Linden Police Chief Alton McWaters parents of students had complained about strange behavior by their children following football practices.

“My son would come home and just act really strange,” said LaQuita Jones, a mother of one student. “He would just stand and stare at the walls for like an hour.  Then one day I walked in to my kitchen and he was sitting on the floor next to a pile of his own feces saying, ‘look, I made Jesus’.  That’s when I knew something wasn’t right.”

Linden Police sent undercover officers to the school on Tuesday before football practice was scheduled to begin. That’s when McWaters says that one of his undercover officers witnessed the coach giving meth to the students.

Carl Allen Byers, the teacher and coach of the school’s football team, was taken in to custody immediately after undercover officers spotted the coach giving the drug to players.

Byers told officers, “I didn’t know it was wrong.  I was just trying to give them a boost of energy.”

Arrested in connection with the incident was William Duncan, who was charged with delivery of a controlled substance in a drug-free zone. Duncan has bonded out of jail, says Police Chief Alton McWaters.

Duncan was picked up in the parking lot of Mae Luster Stephens Junior High School. Linden is about 40 miles southwest of Texarkana, Texas.

McWaters also says officers found drugs in the coach’s truck.