A high school bill that won’t be passed, so what does that mean?

I had mentioned earlier that we were going to talk about this again and the state legislature. We are heard all across the state of North Carolina. You can hear us in Wilmington, you can hear us in Asheville, Greenville, we're everywhere.

It's close to everywhere. And everywhere plays high school sports. Every place cares to varying degrees about high school sports.

Not just football, not just boys and girls basketball, but all the sports that are played in high school. And what has happened over the last couple of days with the name, image, and likeness restrictions being eliminated essentially by the North Carolina High School Athletic Association has had the legs cut out from under it by the state legislature, the General Assembly. They've put an amendment into Senate Bill 636 just to reiterate that you, the high school association, do not control this.

Essentially it's the state that does it. So if you could, Brian Murphy, explain where we are with that and what happened with the amendment. Yeah, this bill just basically strips a lot of the power away from the high school athletic association.

Things, very controversial things like what biological sexes can play with sports, takes that power away from the NCHSA. It just, this bill strips one power after another. And the NCHSA, you know, the high school athletic association yesterday says, yeah, NIL, go into effect July 1st, no more than two or three hours later, they amend that bill to say, you know what, you're not in control of NIL policy either. That bill hasn't passed yet, but we're expecting it to pass. Because it hasn't gone to the House yet. It passed the Senate, did it not? Right, it passed the Senate yesterday with the amendment.

It'll have to go to the House. It could, because it was a party line vote, I'd expect the governor to veto it, but Republicans have supermajority in both the House and the Senate. I would expect them to be able to override the veto if they want to. I mean, this has been a years long effort to undercut the high school athletic association. There was another amendment put in there that said they could terminate agreements with the administering organization, which is what the high school athletic association is, in this case, within six months. They signed a four year memorandum of understanding last year.

They can cut that within six months. Gives all this power to the State Board of Education, largely appointed by the state legislature. So, sounds to me like this really had nothing to do with name, image, and likeness, and it has everything to do with, they don't want the North Carolina High School Athletic Association to run athletics.

That they don't feel like they're making the decisions, or is it more nefarious than that, based on something I read at highschoolOT.com, in that one of the members who's actually the number one guy on the, on Senate Bill 636, Tom McInnis, did some investigating because he was mad that a high school from his district, Anson High School, was kicked out of the state football tournament a few years back for having too many players suspended. After like a brawl. After a brawl, well, he disputes. I'm not even gonna get into the dispute between what was a fight, what was not a fight, what was two people, you know, multiple people coming together physically, whatever, all semantics, but he looked into the books of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association and said, oh my gosh, you have all this money. And that's what it was about. So he was mad that the High School Athletic Association has an endowment.

Right. That's exactly, that's the genesis of this. This is where it started and then other lawmakers have jumped in angry about various other aspects of what the High School Athletic Association has done or not done. I look at it like the NCAA, right? Everyone hates the NCAA. Everyone wants to get rid of the NCAA. The NCAA actually does serve a purpose and that purpose is running all these championships. Someone in North Carolina is going to have to run all these championships.

Someone is going to have to pass rules that says schools can do this, they can't do this, they can do this, they can't do this. And no one really wants that responsibility. It's not a fun job. You know, it's easy for everyone to say you made the wrong call on Anson County. You made the wrong call on an eligibility issue in Wilmington.

You made the wrong call on this. It's a lot harder to be the person that has to make thousands of these decisions each year, most of which go under the radar nobody ever hears about. Someone has to run high school athletics in the state.

Right. For the people, because you drew the, Brian Murphy is in the studio with us, you drew the comparison of the NCAA. For all the people that say get rid of the NCAA, that's fine. Let's just do that.

Let's play the mental exercise. We're going to get rid of the NCAA. But now, you're going to replace it with the NCAA.

You're just going to call it by three or four or eight different letters. It's going to be the same type of an organization. So the state legislature is not going to run high school athletics.

The Department of Education is not going to run high school athletics. It's not just eligibility. There's a ton of different things that go into it. Who stages the high school baseball tournament? I mean, who decides what teams get in? Who decides where those games are played?

Tom McInnis. Who decides, you know, what umpires are assigned to what games and who lines up the fields for them to play at for the Final Four and the state? There's an organization that has to do all that stuff and now multiply it across the board. Am I saying the high school athletic association is perfect?

No. What I'm saying is somebody has to do that and we have a pretty good organization that handles that right now. I spoke to somebody today who was with the high school athletic association is no longer with the organization. And I asked, I said, what percentage do you think of just go high school?

Because we're talking about high school sports. What percentage of high schools across the state are on board with how the North Carolina High School Athletic Association goes about their job? And he said roughly ninety five percent.

Yeah, it's pretty good. I mean, you're not going to get approval at ninety five percent for hardly anything in this country. Except for this show. Ninety nine percent. It's lower.

All right. Brian Murphy is here. So this isn't the only change they're making. I mean, we're talking there's there's been a lot of talk about transgender eligibility in high schools. Yeah, that's been a lot of talk about what charter schools are going to do that. See the transgender thing.

I am not getting into it here, but there are issues this that has zero to do with sports. Save big during the spring savings event right now at Lowe's for a limited time only get fifty dollars off. Select ego self-propelled mowers and twenty dollars off. Select fifteen and sixteen inch string trimmers rated the number one brand in cordless outdoor power equipment. Ego is the perfect way to get your lawn in shape for spring. Lowe's knows outdoor power equipment.

Lowe's knows home improvements about the five seventeen selection varies by location while supplies last. Nothing zero to do with sports. That is a political issue that is couched in sports.

I understand I understand my my role in that space. I'm going to stay away from it, but I'm just telling it's not a sports issue. It is a it is a political issue and that is all it is. But there's also an issue with charter schools which classification they should play.

That's a big deal. What I'm saying is that and and I'm not trying to drag it into the trends. I'm just saying that the the the legislature has decided to put their hands in all kinds of things that deal with high school athletics for a variety of reasons. I mean one one representative was was upset that traditional public schools are not being able to compete at the lowest levels for state titles in part because these charter schools are dominating. So now he's he's introduced introduced a bill that would make the charter schools dominating like soccer men's boys soccer at the 1A and 2A level.

The charter schools are dominating at the 1A and 2A level? That's what that's what was testified to me. Okay. All right final thing we have like a minute and a half left here. I'm going to skip something I wanted to talk about but where are we with PNC Arena and a potential lease? Tomorrow there's a meeting to discuss the the lease negotiations between the Centennial Authority and the Hurricanes. I get the sense there is no resolution to that and they're going to extend the contract of their lease negotiator to see if they can work on a long-term lease with the Hurricanes. So nothing will happen tomorrow.

I've been saying this for a long time. We'll have an announcement on an on a lease when we have an announcement on everything. It all goes together. It's it's you know they're all waiting for the first domino to fall to make all this stuff. We have to get we have to get the particulars in a room which I think that is probably going to happen. Brian Murphy who wins who wins tomorrow night Hurricanes and Devils.

Say the right answer. Hurricanes? Yeah I love it. Save big during the spring savings event right now at Lowe's. For a limited time only get $50 off select ego self-propelled mowers and $20 off select 15 and 16 inch string trimmers. Rated the number one brand in cordless outdoor power equipment.

Ego is the perfect way to get your lawn in shape for spring. Lowe's knows outdoor power equipment. Lowe's knows home improvement. Valter 517 selection varies by location while supplies last.