Jim Rosica
At least one legislator is trying again to change the law on the state’s oversight body for public high school athletics, including ensuring that it is revenue-neutral, among other things.
State Rep. Ross Spano, a Dover Republican, has filed a bill (HB 31) for next session that tweaks state law governing the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA).
This will make the fifth year in a row that lawmakers have taken on the organization, which oversees 32 male and female high-school sports, including bills last session that would have done away with it altogether.
But the association’s CEO said his organization is simply doing its job: Enforcing student-athlete eligibility rules.
“What we try to do is (explain) to anyone in the Legislature who has a misunderstanding of what the FHSAA does, what services we provide and the good things we do,” said Dr. Roger Dearing, the organization’s CEO.
But it’s worth noting the group also has “lobbied up” in advance of any fight in the Legislature next session, most recently hiring the Corcoran & Johnston firm.
Conservative lawmakers targeted the body in recent years after constituents complained about their children not being able to play certain sports because of strict transfer rules, especially when kids change schools but don’t move.
The group’s defenders, including Democrats and some public school officials, countered that weakening the rules would create a free agency system for high school athletes.
Allowing students too easily to attend class at one school but play ball for another could encourage recruiting of high school and even middle school players, they said.
Spano’s bill keeps the association “designated as the governing nonprofit organization of athletics in Florida public schools.” But it would replace it with another body if FHSAA “fails to meet the provisions of this section.”
The legislation says FHSAA “may not prohibit or discourage any school from simultaneously maintaining membership in the FHSAA and another athletic association.”
Further, the bill would restrain the group from collecting fees and event revenue that “exceed actual costs” of running the organization.
Spano, an attorney who practices in Hillsborough County, was in a hearing Wednesday and unavailable for an interview, his assistant said.
State Sen. Kelli Stargel, a Lakeland Republican who carried an FHSAA-overhaul bill last year, said she had no interest in creating free agents out of high school players.
“The kind of school choice I am interested in means not limiting (students’) ability in participate in athletics,” she said.
Students may switch schools because their last one was failing, Stargel explained, not because they wanted to play on a particular team. That said, they shouldn’t be held back from playing for their new school if they can make the team.
When asked if she was filing her own FHSAA bill for 2016, she said, “Possibly,” mentioning she was scheduled to meet with FHSAA representatives next week.
The FHSAA’s Dearing said his organization simply enforces student-athlete eligibility.
His organization polices coaches and other school officials from recruiting star student-athletes from other schools, even in the same district, to play for their teams just to increase their chances at winning.
“I think what (lawmakers) are saying is our (eligibility) committees are too suspicious of undue influence,” he said. “Their belief is it shouldn’t make any difference why a kid changed schools.”
Dearing, a former classroom teacher and administrator, also said his association wants to make sure learning comes first for high-school student-athletes.
“We’re here to educate,” he said. Sports and other “extracurricular activities are for kids to have buy-in, enhancing their bodies and their minds. We believe that transfers should be purely for academic reasons.”
Moreover, Dearing said he made a list of the changes in policy and bylaws that the organization has made since the 2012-13 school year. There are 198, he added.
They include an updated “heat and hydration” policy, and making Florida the fifth state to have comprehensive concussion awareness and education, Dearing said.
“When we hear a concern, we try to react to it,” he said.
