NCHSAA is making big moves regarding High School athletics

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See website for details. All right, so I saw this when I opened up my laptop at a stupid hour like 5 25 today this morning. Yes, happens. A Nick Stevens story from high school OT. He is the managing editor. And it seems that the North Carolina High School Athletic Association is about to be neutered by the North Carolina General Assembly.

And we'll let Nick Stevens fill in the blanks. But does it? Did I get it? Did I get that right?

Does it seem like they're about to be neutered by the General Assembly? I haven't used that word yet. I don't own rights to the word. You can use it if it's accurate.

I don't want you to be inaccurate. Yeah, so some of the senators who supported this are on Twitter right now saying that it's not accurate to say that the NCHSA's authority is being stripped from it. But if you read the bill, I think that is very much open to interpretation. And that's how we are reporting it is that much of the authority of the NCHSA is is being stripped away from it and given to the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education, which are obviously politically elected or appointed positions. So there will be some political oversight of high school athletics going forward, assuming this does become law. You can decide if you think that saying stripping it away is, you know, a fair thing. But some of the things that this bill does is it will take the authority of the NCHSA to establish rules around things like academic standards, enrollment, transfer requirements, attendance, medical eligibility, recruiting, hardship, amateur status, which which includes NIL for high school athletes.

They can no longer be part of that. And so, you know, this is a very important bill that the NCHSA has made up, given to the State Board of Education exclusively. The State Board cannot give that authority back to the NCHSA.

And it also lays out a very detailed appeals process that the NCHSA will have to follow changes to the NCHSA board and how it's made up. It changes the way the NCHSA is able to make revenue or not able to make revenue. For example, they cannot take more than a third of the ticket share of any state playoff game, which is one way that the state board can take that authority back to the NCHSA. They can't take corporate sponsorships anymore. There's a lot in there that, you know, I think it's fair to say, strips a lot of the authority away from the NCHSA. Nick Stevens, high school team managing editor, is joining us here in the Adam Gold show. The notion that this doesn't, and I'll use the term again, neuter the North Carolina High School Athletic Association, has to be rooted only in the fact that we will decide what things we will allow you, if I read the story correctly, that we, the General Assembly and the Superintendent of Education or whatever, we will decide what you guys can govern, essentially.

The NCHSA and I can't even say NCHSAA too many letters for me. Here's my next question about about this. It's this clearly stems from one senator, mad that hit a school in his district, was banned from the high school football playoffs like four years ago. And that instituted some sort of a nonstop. It was an investigation into the high school athletic association.

And he was appalled that the organization had 40 million dollars of like in net proceeds or something to that effect. Like, well, yeah. Why? Why? Why?

That's that's a good thing. Why isn't it? Why is that a bad thing? They're not taking tax dollars. This is money that they've basically they've gotten from sponsorships or attendance.

Why was that bad? Well, I think it's because, you know, I think it's because of the fact that, you know, the NCHSAA has had a lot of money to the senator there. You know, there are athletic directors in schools and administrators who and coaches who have had concerns about the amount of money that the NCHSAA has had in assets over the years.

They do have a very large endowment fund. Right. But the NCHSAA will point to the fact that, you know, that money is being used each year to give money back to the schools. Right. You know, there's a lot of criticism in the 90s who is the longtime executive director of the NCHSAA in hopes of making sure that, you know, state championships and state playoffs were always around and the kids would not have to pay to be part of them. They've used it for things like recovery efforts at schools after natural disasters, hurricanes, purchasing AEDs for member schools to make sure all of them had AEDs on site. You know, it's probably a fair criticism in the minds of many to say that there should be more transparency around that.

OK, that's fair. There has been more transparency since the HB 91, the bill that was passed in 2021. There is more transparency around that. Now, you can go on the NCHSAA website and see all their financial documents. And just this week, the NCHSAA announced the formation of a foundation. So they were actually planning to separate the endowment fund from their own organization and put it into a separate nonprofit that has its own board of trustees and manage it that way, which would provide them more transparency and separate that from their general funds. But this new legislation is basically going to mean that can't happen as well. There's a couple of things about this that trouble me.

Nick Stevens, you only have a couple more minutes left here. And one is that this bill would prohibit the Athletic Association from offering grants or scholarships. Right. Which seems to me to be silly that if if something like that would make it easier for a person to go to a school or a school to get something else, you know, money funds from this general fund, it just seems like that would be a good thing.

But it seems almost to mirror how we view public education in this state, as though it's a nuisance as opposed to a necessity. Hey, Carolina Panthers fans, Chris Lee and Dennis Cox here. We're excited to offer you all the inside information on your team with the newest member of the Capital Broadcasting Podcast Network, Panthers Playbook. Twice a week, we'll keep you updated on your Carolina Panthers. We're talking about locker room insight, exclusive interviews, and of course, in-depth looks at all of the Panthers wins. Touchdown, Carolina! Panthers Playbook, download and subscribe today at wrelsportsfan.com or wherever you discover your favorite podcasts.

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Boyd where prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and conditions apply. See website for details. I can't say I followed the politics of this. Okay. All that closely. That's probably not for this show.

That's probably not for this show, Nick, but that's just the way I look at it. It's like, what do we have against an organization that seems to be doing good? It's a football Friday and I've spent the last 12 hours. I apologize for dragging you into it. It's like legislative stuff. You know, that's not why I cover high school sports. I get it.

I get it. There's there's there are a lot of people who are pointing stuff out about that. You know, there was one of the I think it was I think it was one of the House of Representatives members last night, sit up during the debate and said that she felt like there was some hypocrisy in saying that this is needed for transparency and accountability based on what the state budget has in it for the opportunity.

I think there's opportunity scholarships for private schools. So, you know, there are people raising concerns like that. You know, I won't I don't know that it's exactly relevant to what's going to happen now with high school sports. But, you know, I think people can make up their own mind in terms of that stuff.

I'll ask I'll ask you this question. I apologize for dragging you into an area you didn't want to go to. Final thing for Nick Stevens, managing editor, high school OT. Go to high school OT dot com for all your high school. And it is a football Friday where we're into high school sports. Overall, is this good or bad for the athletes?

Well, again, I think you can leave that open to interpretation by a lot of people. I will say, if you go read the statements that are coming in from the NCHSA, from the North Carolina Athletic Writers Association, from the North Carolina Coaches Association, you can go look at Twitter. And, you know, my Twitter is blowing up with coaches and administrators and athletic directors right now. It's not popular amongst that group. And they believe that this is going to harm high school athletics going forward. You know, I suppose that there are some out there who do support this because the legislators who have been proposing this legislation say they're hearing from those people. But, you know, based on that, we don't have any scientific data around this, but based on the response we've seen from these organizations and from from Twitter today.

You know, I think at least in the high school sports world, the immediate high school sports world, it's not exactly popular right now. All right. Apology for dragging you into a spot you didn't want to be in. At Nick Stevens, H.S.O.T.

on Twitter. You're the best, man. I appreciate your time. Thanks, Adam.

Nick is like, no, don't do that. I apologize. I could be wrong about this because this is not my area of expertise. But here's the way it feels to me. And it feels to me and I am a huge advocate of public education. It feels to me the way people feel about public ed.

Yeah. And I am very pro public ed. High School Athletic Association in trying to take anybody's they're not trying to get one over on you. I know too many people that have been involved in the NCHSAA for too long.

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