Tom Davis is the victim of an overzealous power move to display authority instead of admitting that the rule being broken was nothing more than an annoyance to the people in charge.
This is a real life example of Dick Doobey coming down on Quentin Cassidy for handing in the athletes petition after the great midnight raid at our beloved Southeastern University.
It amazes me that when situations like this occur, the authority figures are never criticized for the rules they enact. There is no precedent for not allowing students to train shirtless. There's no law being broke. There isn't any logical reason other than the principal just doesn't like it...
The counter argument to this is that the coach didn't enforce the rule, and in some matter, challenged the authority on it, so he should be fired. I get it. It makes sense.
The problem I have with that argument is that it takes a kid being punched in the face and an extremely successful coach to be fired for people to question if the rules being made and enforced serve any real purpose other than to appease the opinion of a member of the "administration".
So while I think you can make the argument that Tom didn't listen to the law, I think the bigger shame is letting people like this AD and the administration fire a coach under the guise of "chain of command" when it's really to cover up the issue that running shirtless... isn't an issue.