JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Florida High School Athletic Association has released a packed schedule for its board meeting next week where it will vote to put in place revamped policies to accommodate the passage of two bills and its new Open division for the playoffs.
Senate bills 538 and 178 will become law on July 1, and the much-debated open division will begin this fall across multiple sports. The FHSAA will vote on the updates to its policies on June 9.
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SB 538 will be significant for this era’s high school student. With nontraditional students (home school, charter, virtual) increasing every year, the FHSAA asked the state for help to curb rampant athletic transfers.
Among other items on the table for discussion are the addition of pickleball as a sport (160 schools said they are interested in sanctioning with another 260 unsure about it).
The big change means that students may not participate at two different schools in the same year unless they meet select criteria.
Situations involving foster care, active-duty military, court-ordered changes in custody, a full and complete residential move, a non-disciplinary reassignment by a district school and a transfer from a wait list within the first 20 days qualify.
Nontraditional students will have to compete at a school within their county of residence. If no public school offers the sport in that student’s district of residence and that student can’t reach an agreement to play on a private school in that district, only then can they try and play for a school in an adjacent district. An appeal to executive director Craig Damon would serve as a last resort if there were no schools in a student’s area to accommodate that sports request.
That will serve to eliminate situations of students playing fall, winter and spring sports at three different schools, or allowing out-of-state athletes to compete on teams. Damon spoke at a hearing in Tallahassee and detailed athletes playing the first week of the football playoffs at one school and on another school the next week after his team was eliminated.
The Open division
Talked about for years to help usher the transfer-heavy super teams away from the more traditional schools, the Open division finally has a date of action. Instead of just football, the Open division will apply to volleyball, basketball, soccer, baseball and softball.
In football, the top eight teams in state based on MaxPreps rankings will be seeded after the completion of the regular season and placed into their own state tournament. In all other sports, the seeding will take place after district tournaments.
It will include Pool A (seeds 1, 4, 5, 8) and Pool B (2, 3, 6, 7). After pool play, the top two teams will advance to the state championship to crown the Open champion. There’s still questions on whether the board will opt to add provisions such as allowing a team to opt out of the Open division if they quality. It is scheduled to begin this fall.
The Teddy Bridgewater portion
Bridgewater, the former head football coach at Miami Northwestern and current NFL quarterback, was suspended by his school after admitting in a social media post that he voluntarily supported numerous athletes on his team. Among things Bridgewater helped with it included Uber rides, meals and medical treatment. The amount he spent isn’t detailed exactly in his post, but Bridgewater would have still been in violation of the new bill by tens of thousands of dollars.
The only problem with that: those acts were forbidden by the FHSAA and looked at like impermissible benefits. That led to national attention asking how Bridgewater would be in trouble for helping in-need students out.
The FHSAA’s updated Policy 36 spells out how the Bridgewater Act will work.
Only the personal funds of head coaches can provide for players. The support must be related to the health, safety or welfare of the student. That is limited to food, transportation, and recovery services. It cannot be recurring.
A school must authorize that support, and the student’s parent/guardian must sign off on it as well. A report must be filed with the FHSAA within 10 days of the transaction. The bill is largely symbolic as Bridgewater was a highly unusual case. As an active NFL player with more than $66 million in career earnings, Bridgewater was uniquely positioned to help financially. High school head football coaching supplements in Florida are dreadfully low, starting at $3,038 (Broward County) and going up to $8,317 (Charlotte County). The average supplement in Florida according to News4JAX data is $4,972.