Last week, BCP was fortunate enough to catch up with Dr. Roger  Dearing, Executive Director of the Florida High School Athletic  Association. The FHSAA is the governing body of all high school  interscholastic activities and Dr. Dearing was kind enough to give us  30 minutes while on location at the Baseball State Finals in Port  St.  Lucie. Dr. Dearing and I discussed a wide variety of topics that  were  suggested by members of our message board in addition to  some of  the broader topics around the state. Here is the discussion I  had with  Dr. Dearing.

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***Duval County Ruling***

Q: First of all thank you Dr. Dearing for allowing us some time to get your thoughts on several things from here and around the state. We’ve just seen the ruling out of Duval County in the recent days and on April 6^th you were quoted in an article in response to the district’s proposal to cut Varsity sports from the school as saying; “I thought that suggestion didn’t float.” My question to you now is what are your thoughts now that they have ruled to cut as many as five sports?

A: “The initial discussion from the Director of the School Board in Duval County was that they were going to eliminate ALL sports in Duval County and I just couldn’t see how it could’ve happened. There are too many constituents, too many supporters for it to happen. This is the fourth year in a row they have had to make drastic cuts to the operational budget. You can’t shutdown libraries, media centers and science labs. I was hoping to see some of the Boosters possibly to step up and try and supplement what losses they have incurred within the district and those schools and programs in particular. The sports that have been eliminated are those that do not charge admission at the gate therefore do not generate the income such as football or basketball. I absolutely hate to see it for those kids that are involved, as well as those parents. Athletics provides the opportunity to learn competition, cooperation as well as the right and wrong way to handle yourself and situations further in life.  As the water hole dries up they have to be careful what resources must fall to the side and you can’t cut from the classroom side of it more than what’s already been done.”

***Ripple Effect***

Q: Is there a ripple effect statewide from this ruling? Are there any other districts considering such drastic measures as Duval?

A: “No not really. The only other district that was even considering using this approach was Gulf County. They had planned to cut some sports such as wrestling, but I don’t remember what the others were. I would hope that most school or districts would see the value of reducing everything a little bit instead of just eliminating five sports altogether. I have not heard any county considering something as drastic as what Duval County decided.”

***Statewide Budget Crisis and It’s Influence***

Q: Does the statewide budget crisis have you worried about this possibly becoming a disturbing trend amongst other counties regarding this issue?

A: “Until the budget starts to iron itself out and the news just came from the budget deficit estimating conference that it wasn’t going to be quite as bad as they thought it was going to be, but on the other hand and I don’t want to be critical of any politicians, but they also decided to give a lot of corporate tax break to businesses and you can see the long-term goal there to get more corps into FL to generate more revenue etc. so when they decided to give these breaks the money had to come from somewhere. That’s where you see the trickle-down effect take place”

***Politics & the FHSAA***

Q: There’s a perception that the FHSAA, which is headquartered in Gainesville, has many ties to what the Legislature in Tallahassee is doing. Just how intertwined are the political decisions from the Capital Building with the not-so-pleasant decisions made in Gainesville?

A: “Actually they’re not intertwined much at all. The 1996 Legislature declared that we are the sole agent of the state and that we are the provider of athletics and requisite activities associated with it whether public or private. I’ve been there 3 years and the only piece of legislation FHSAA-related was this year in which three pieces of legislation were introduced. They were the bill regarding concussions, another regarding Athletic Trainers, and a bill regarding private schools.”

***Concussions***

Q: Concussions have become a major topic of conversation on our message board and in the media in general. Overall, the general public is starting to become more cognizant of the potential dangers of head injuries. There’s a concern however that the responsibility of declaring a player medically-able to participate or re-enter a game is falling into the hands of the wrong people or the hands of people not specifically qualified to make such decisions. Can you speak about what the FHSAA is doing to combat this?

A: “The FHSAA Board of Directors is moving forward just as if the legislation had passed regarding concussions. The legislation stalled between the State House and the Senate because they couldn’t agree that chiropractors are certified, licensed and trained to send kids back to the playing fields. They all agreed on every other part of the legislation, they just couldn’t agree on what doctors can make the diagnosis. But, we’re going to establish policies and rules about concussions just like it said in the proposed legislation. We’re going to require every coach of FHSAA Members Schools NFHS Members to view a 20-minute video and sign that they have reviewed the topics of properly identifying and treating concussion symptoms, raising concussion awareness, etc. This video will also be made available online for free if parents feel as though they want to get involved in the process as well. Our board will also be implementing policies requiring a specific hierarchy to be developed (a chain of command so-to-speak) with the game official-Athletic Trainer-Head Coach-Athletic Director-Principal being the order set in place so that everyone at the event knows how the information should flow. We’re working with several groups right now to determine which specific doctors will be ultimately determining whether or not a kid can return to play.”

***Pay-for-play***

Q: What about the possibility of a ‘pay-for’play’ system where there’s some sort of activities fees associated with playing each sport?

A: “You can understand the necessity for a pay-to-play system because truthfully the state in theory wants the schools to be self-sufficient when it comes to playing athletics. The citizens should be taxed for the educational aspect and it’s tough for people to sign-off on paying for something that could be viewed as a social aspect, not a required educational expenditure. Of course you’re going to have those that struggle no matter what when it comes to this process, but a scholarship model where some sort of financial aid is definitely within the realm of possibility. One of the things that our board has recommended is that the ticket prices be raised $1.00 across the board. Ticket prices have not been changed in Florida since 1999. So all the regular and postseason games would be raised and 75% of that revenue goes back to the schools which would help them [schools] tremendously. We’re also going to reduce our school membership fees by 50%. Between those two, that’s almost a million dollars going back to the member institutions.”

***Recruiting***

Q: We’ve just seen some decisions levied against schools for violations stemming from recruiting and/or players following the coach. Although it is found to be happening in football, the ‘club sports’ where AAU systems are in place like Volleyball, Basketball, Baseball, and Soccer that these violations are running rampant. How do you feel about this and its potential harm to the integrity of the interscholastic model?

A: “That’s our biggest problem right now is that the kids who are involved in club sports following coaches from those sports and the rule says you must sit out 365 days. The coach may say well I didn’t recruit him, but it’s the relationship that already exists and that’s the main issue. How do you truly separate whether or not a kid is attending that school for the academic reasons and not because of the pre-existing relationship with the coach? Our rules say you’re ineligible if you do that. Over the last two years, we’ve had over 250 appeals of that rule. And nearly every time that appeal gets turn down. The kid and the parent go away upset, turn around now they put the coach’s feet to the fire. So now coaches who also coach at the club level will now have to get written statements declaring who they coach on their interscholastic squad that represents their club affiliation as well. Parents will have to sign this too. Ever since we were established in 1920 it has been stated that you should not transfer in whole or in part because of athletics.”

***Future Sanctioning of Sports***

Q: Flag Football has blossomed in popularity in the recent years, and specifically within the Tampa Bay Region. Although it’s not a sanctioned sport it’s growing exponentially and relatively cheap to operate. With Title IX always an issue, what’s the possibility and/or feasibility of Flag Football coming online in the not-so-distant future?

A: “Here’s what the FHSAA has right now. We have 24 sanctioned sports, and 6 recognized sports. We oversee more athletic activities than any other association in the country. If you look at our bylaws the difference between a sanctioned a recognized is the number of teams statewide that participate AND a minimum of 20% in the four administrative areas throughout the state. It’s almost got the prerequisite numbers with over 200 schools participating, so as soon as we get the 20% in the 4 administrative sections we will move forward with the sanctioning of that sport. One thing important to note and we’ve seen this with Boys Lacrosse with schools trying to use this as a club sport. Little do they know that the office of civil rights says that if the school sponsors it whether its club or sanctioned it counts towards your Title IX numbers.”

***Reclassification and Districting***

Q: There have been countless discussions about the reclassification and districting of teams since they were announced over a month ago. If they FHSAA is set on 8 classes, is there a possibility that the FHSAA could shrink the number of districts to eight and put 9-teams in each? Or is it that simple?

A: “The number one reason is we are trying to get schools to play each other locally is the first goal. Just for the simple fact that transportation costs have gone through the roof. Try to let them play locally as much as possible. #2 is the size. You don’t want schools of 4,000 kids playing schools of 1,200 just for the sake of doing it. We really are trying to minimize the amount of travel. It’s an almost impossible dichotomy to deal with between the two, but we do the best we can.”

***The Controversial Judicial Appeals Ruling***

Q: A while back, some folks raised legitimate questions regarding that states all judicial appeals to the FHSAA must be filed in the home county in Alachua Co.? What would you say to the prevailing cynical attitude that this could be a way for the FHSAA to create leverage and use their power to influence judges and so on? What was the reason for coming to this decision in the first place?

A: “We have a policy in our book that says you WILL work through our rules and the executive director of the FHSAA and you have a number of different avenues to do so. You can go through the sections appeals committee, the infractions committee, and so on. It’s when they go outside of the ‘red book’ and try to take it to the outside court system is when it starts to pile up the costs for us because we now have to hire attorney’s and everything else that goes with it. Somebody has to pay for that. Your membership dues are paying for that. Because of the 501c3 status the statutes say that if you’re going to file a suit against a corporate entity that you have to do that within the county they do business in and that’s Alachua Co. where the home office is. With 785 member school and 65,000+ student-athletes, you can probably imagine how economically impossible it is to sustain that sort of workload and we’d be running all over the state 365 days of the year. So it’s trying to reduce cost to schools when it’s a parent-school specific thing that deals with people trying to bend the rules.  There were approx 6 cases involving FHSAA this year and all of them were won by the FHSAA because the courts have maintained all the way up to the Supreme Court that participation is not a right to play athletics in the State of Florida, it is a privilege. You sign a contract. It’s voluntary membership. It’s when they go through the court system who in fact has very little jurisdiction to begin with unless the FHSAA violates their civil rights. The 3^rd, 4^{th, and} 5^th District Courts have dealt with this. There should be no issues that go through the court system because we have our own policies, procedures, due process, system of appeals, etc. The most typical suit is we declare a kid ineligible and the parents counter with we (FHSAA) are denying their child the right to a scholarship.”

***Geography and the State Finals***

Q: What about the geographical locations of the State Finals? We were aware that a city in our own backyard was a finalist to host the football series that Orlando has hosted now for quite some time. Do you prefer to move them or keep them centrally located? Was this a pure business decision based on the needs of the FHSAA and the best possible scenario for the schools?