We were glad to hear an arbitrator ruled in favor of former Minnesota State University, Mankato, football coach Todd Hoffner, a victim of a overzealous prosecutors and a spineless university administration.

After all, the man did nothing wrong when he took a video of his nude children playing on his cellphone. Parents and grandparents have been taking images of youthful innocence since cameras have been around. Photo albums across America have one or two in many of them. He saw his three kids performing skits in the family’s whirlpool tub and wanted to record the memory with the nearest device, which happened to be his work phone.

If Hoffner was guilty, then many other ordinary moms and dads are, too.

Hoffner was arrested and charged. A sensible Blue Earth County judge dismissed the charge, saying there was no probable cause, the videos were innocent and Hoffner was protected by the First Amendment. They were not child pornography, and the government needs to stay out of the home.

What’s illegal would be improper distribution of those images or even taking such footage or photos for the sake of distribution or lewd, sexual purposes.

The university pushed on and suspended Hoffner, then it fired him. After the court vindication, it would not reinstate him. He presently is the football coach at Minot State University in North Dakota.

Meanwhile, his wife, a guidance counselor at a Mankato high school, stood by him the whole way, a telltale sign that what he did with his phone was simply part of being an ordinary father.

Arbitrator Gerald E. Wallin ruled MSU-Mankato must reinstate Hoffner with back pay with interest because he was suspended and fired without just cause. It also must reinstate the coach’s four-year contract.

A man’s life has been dragged through the mud for two years because of egos. Once poor decisions were made early on, prosecutors and university officials were unwilling to step back and admit their errors. And errors they made. Just ask the arbitrator and the judge.

The university will pay for its mistakes. Leaders are on course to lose their jobs. The prosecutors, as representatives of Blue Earth County government, should lose their jobs, too. They abused their power.