09/05/15 – Proposal by Proposal Analysis of 2015 Annual Meeting Proposals

September 4, 2015 Athletic Department Blog Updates

This is the second part of a two-part effort to talk about the 2015 KHSAA Annual Meeting. Because of another vast turnover in athletic administrators this year, and in order to help you prepare, this information is being sent well in advance of this year’s meeting to allow for review and discussion. Please feel free to contact the office with any questions.

Final preparations are underway for the 2015 Annual Meeting at the Lexington Center on September 10. Staff is busily making final updates to the documents related to the meeting, and posting them on the KHSAA website with updates nearly every day. We will again have workshop sessions in the morning, however, we have restructured the schedule to allow the combined groups to be involved in all of the workshops. This will allow for much more consistent interaction with presenters will allowing ample time for guests to visit the exhibit booths.

During the morning sessions, there are three great workshops.

• John Butler, Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance at the University of Kentucky will present on the major NCAA initiative entitled “NCAA Eligibility 101 – 2point3” and will lead an advance session on college and career readiness requirements for students transitioning from high school to college by ensuring the basic academic requirements for college level participation which change dramatically next year. Additionally, the constantly changing face of recruiting rules.
• Representatives of the NFHS Network will talk about opportunities to utilize the School Broadcast Program to enhance your school. This is an important supplement to the efforts to promote the young people of our state and of your school; and
• Damian Martinez, Educational Program Manager for the Taylor Hooton Foundation will present “Hoot’s Chalk Talk”, a research based presentation on the use of Appearance and Performance Enhancing Drugs (including over the counter dietary supplements) and anabolic steroids.

There are only three (3) proposals on the agenda to change the bylaws of the KHSAA this year. The Board has done its required due diligence and many of the possible proposals that were discussed were not formalized until further data can be gathered. The proposals are detailed at http://khsaa.org/annualmeeting/20152016/annualmeetingproposals.pdf. Two of these came from the Board of Control’s required Annual Review and those represent the very few issues that have arisen in the last year for which the Board seeks the approval of the schools in finding a remedy. The other proposals come from the member schools, and is designed to address a specific issue among the membership. Below is a detailed description of each of the proposals.

PROPOSAL 1 – Is a proposal from the Board of Control to make an exception to the one-year period of ineligibility potentially invalid if the student is living with any athletic coach or member of the school staff or team members. Clearly, living with a coach, staff member or team member is an athletic advantage and should be grounds for the denial of the waiver of the period of ineligibility. Several cases in the recent past have dealt with this issue to the extent that the Board of Control felt that it should be spelled in the rule.

PROPOSAL 2 – Is a proposal from the Board of Control to eliminate the provisions of the transfer rule that applied to students in grades 4-12 being further restricted on the transfer rule within the same year. This provision, enacted a couple of decades ago to deal with mid-year transfers, is likely not legally permissible to enforce due to the requirements of the KHSAA to have a Due Process Procedure for all students as it restricts discretionary waivers. Many schools likely don’t even realize this provision is in the bylaw, and certainly have not been applying it consistently.

PROPOSAL 3 – Is proposed by a veteran coach and Athletic Director at a member school who feels the need to eliminate the option to have 11 weeks to play 10 football games, and reduce the allowable time to 10 weeks to play 10 games, beginning in 2017. His stated rationale is that with recent changes in contact restrictions, especially the elimination of multiple contact practices on the same day; schools starting earlier each summer and the natural “rolling forward” of the corresponding dates calendar, if a change isn’t made, preseason football practice in some years could be as little as 8 days before a first scrimmage. In light of all of the changes made in health and safety, it does not seem that this is adequate preparation time before facing an outside opponent. For example, in 2017, with a contact start date of August 1 for all schools and a possible week 0 play date (or second scrimmage date) of Friday, August 18, this would leave only eight weekdays for contact practice prior to an August 11 scrimmage. It is even worse in 2018, with only seven weekdays before that week 0 play date (or second scrimmage date). With two years to prepare, and alignment adjustments for 2017 likely requiring schedule changes, the schedule adjustments, movements of bowl games, etc. have plenty of time to occur. It will not be easy to schedule, but we have time to adjust schedules. Those that have trouble scheduling will likely have trouble getting a full schedule regardless of system.

Hope to see you in Lexington!