MOULTRE, Ga. – One of Georgia’s most successful, highest paid high school football coaches Thursday had his one-year suspension rescinded for head-butting a player last season in a big game.

The decision frees Coach Rush Propst to coach the two-time defending state champion Colquitt County, Georgia High School team in the upcoming season. He was suspended in May by the Georgia Professional Standards Commission.

Propst, who is paid $122,459 annually as coach and athletic director, appealed his suspension to an administrative law judge. His attorney negotiated a reduced penalty with the state attorney general’s office. The commission accepted the recommendation at a meeting in Atlanta.

The head butt came in the opening half of Colquitt’s 52-31 win over Mill Creek High School in the state 1-AAAAAA semifinal game last December when Propst confronted the team’s kicker, ramming his head into the player’s helmet. He then turned and bumped into another player. A television camera captured the scene, including blood streaming from the top of the coach’s head and down his face.

The video went viral on the Internet, causing widespread discussion of the coach’s conduct. Propst said the blood was from a scratch he received from a screw in the second player’s helmet when he turned back toward the camera.

Paul Shaw, director of ethics for the Professional Standards Commission, said it felt “like a mistake was made, but let’s move on, and let’s all learn from it. We all make mistakes.” Shaw said he hoped that Propst would “look for new ways to motivate the kids and continue to be successful.”

The commission oversees teacher conduct and discipline in Georgia, including that of coaches.

Propst is one of the nation’s best-known high school football coaches. He was featured on MTV’s “Two-A-Days” reality show several years ago when he coached Hoover, Alabama, High School to that state’s football championship and national acclaim. He also became enmeshed in a scandal involving a secret romantic life with a girlfriend while married. He eventually divorced his wife, married the girlfriend and resigned as Hoover’s  coach.