Why? Fire the coaches, get two more, and continue the season. Life goes on.
"is there something else the father could have done?"
I'm sure.
But consider this. The guy's mother dies. He goes out of town for the funeral, missing his son's game. While he's away, the coaches don't play his son on defense.
Now he's thinking, "WTF? Why did you guys do that?" He probably wants to brag to the high school or the college that his son "never missed one second of one game" playing defense. Now look what happened.
So he's upset. I would be too.
"Was the entire team aware of the consequences?"
Probably not. But the coaches were, and they chose to violate the specific conditions outlined in the e-mail. Now, in their defense, they probably thought they wouldn't be fired, considering the standing of the team. They thought wrong.
So now they throw themselves on the mercy of the liberal press, crying that there "was a misunderstanding" and looking for public pressure to change things. As much as I don't like the commissioner for his heavy-handed e-mail, I'm liking the coaches less for their poor-me, crybaby antics. The time to stand up to this clown was at the beginning of the season.
So the petty bastard broke up the team in retaliation. He's an ass.