Star Tribune staff writer and regular Dateline Minnesota contributor Richard Meryhew filed this dispatch Wednesday afternoon from the courthouse in Mankato:

MANKATO -- Football coach Todd Hoffner took the stand in a courtroom here Wednesday and adamantly asserted that cellphone videos of his naked children contain "nothing inappropriate" and shouldn't warrant criminal charges against him.

Speaking publicly for the first time since his arrest on child pornography charges, Hoffner, 46, appeared in Blue Earth County District Court at a hearing on his attorney's motion to have the charges dismissed.

Called to the stand by his attorney, Jim Fleming, Hoffner calmly answered questions for about a half hour of the three-hour hearing.

"There is nothing inappropriate about anything," Hoffner said of the videos a technician found on his work phone when he had it repaired.

Hoffner, the head football coach of Minnesota State University, Mankato, faces two felony counts of child pornography involving three videos of his children dancing naked and touching themselves.

Fleming, who viewed the videos, has consistently said there is nothing sexual or graphic in them. He filed a motion last week to have the charges dismissed.

District Judge Krista Jass gave attorneys until Nov. 14 to file written briefs on the motion and said she'd issue a decision after that.