LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A Kentucky high school football coach on Monday pleaded not guilty to reckless homicide in the heat-related death of a 15-year-old player who collapsed while running sprints at a sweltering August practice.

David Jason Stinson was released without having to post bond following his arraignment. A grand jury last week indicted Stinson, who was in his first year as head coach, in the death of Pleasure Ridge High School offensive lineman Max Gilpin.

“This is not about football, this is not about coaches,” Jefferson County Commonwealth’s Attorney David Stengel said after the hearing. “This is about an adult person who was responsible for the health and welfare of a child.”

Gilpin was one of six people to die because of the heat in high school and college athletics in 2008. Stengel said he doesn’t know if this is the first case in which a coach has been criminally charged in such a death that happens occasionally in all levels of athletics.

One of Stinson’s attorneys, Brian Butler, said the case won’t be settled without a trial because his client “is not responsible for this child’s death.”

“Coach Stinson absolutely believes that he is innocent of these charges. This is a tragedy beyond belief for (Gilpin’s) family,” Butler said. “His heart goes out to them.”

The sophomore died Aug. 23 of complications from heat stroke, three days after collapsing at practice. His family attended the hearing but did not speak to reporters. Jeff Gilpin and Michele Crockett, the player’s divorced parents, have jointly filed a lawsuit against the school’s coaching staff, accusing them of negligence and “reckless disregard.”

Despite the felony charge that carries a maximum of five years in prison, some in the south Louisville community have rallied around the coach.

“They’re dragging a very good man through the mud and I don’t understand why,” football booster Rodney Daugherty said Sunday.

“He’s liable to be ruined over this. Even if he comes out exonerated, he’ll probably be ruined and also mentally he’ll be damaged for life,” said 53-year-old Mike Embry, the co-owner of Don Embry Body Shop, a financial booster of the football program.

Parents, students, athletes and others in the community during a 90-minute rally Sunday spoke openly about Stinson, who graduated from a nearby Louisville high school, before going on to play offensive lineman for the University of Louisville, then briefly for the New York Giants.

He spent three years as an offensive line coach before taking over as Pleasure Ridge’s head coach in January 2008 and also is a deacon at his church.

The reckless homicide charge means grand jurors didn’t find that Stinson’s actions were intentional or malicious, Stengel said last week, but that “a reasonable man should have realized something like this could have occurred.”

A Facebook group page in support of Stinson had over 1,400 members as of Monday morning, with most message board posters using the wall as a chance to offer prayers for Stinson and his family.

Daugherty worries about Stinson’s financial and mental health.

“He’s a guy with a heart of gold,” Daugherty said. “There were only two people that hurt worse than him. That’s the boy’s parents.”