A proposal to amend the Athletic Bylaws of the Nebraska School Activities Association to impose limits on the number of baseball games played during the spring season was passed in five of the six NSAA districts in recent Second District Meetings.  District I NSAA representatives (Lincoln area) passed the proposal in its Second District Meeting on January 7th, followed by District III the following day.  The other four districts held their Second Meetings on January 14th, where the proposal was approved in three districts but was defeated unanimously, 79-0, in District II (Metro), the district with by far the most baseball programs.  (See Voting Results chart below.) Passage of the proposal in at least three districts means that it now advances to the April 3rd Annual Meeting of the NSAA Representative Assembly where it will be voted on by that 49-member legislative body.  The affirmative vote of thirty delegates in the Representative Assembly will result in the proposal becoming effective in 2010.

 

The proposal sets a cap of twenty "dates" on which varsity games may be played.  Doubleheaders would count as one "date" as would tournaments.  A maximum of four tournaments, other than districts and state, would be allowed.  The twenty "date" proposal was submitted by Westside for strategic purposes after a similar seventeen-date proposal had previously been submitted by Beatrice.  Although Westside Athletic Director Dr. Bob Reznicek stated that he felt that most baseball schools preferred the "status quo", i.e., no contest limits, visible support for the seventeen-date cap in other districts prompted Westside to submit a proposal that would provide an alternative to the seventeen-date cap and give baseball schools something they could live with if contest limits for baseball became a reality.

 

Two of the five districts that voted in favor of baseball contest limits, Districts V and VI from the western part of the state, have no member schools with baseball programs. 

 

Voting Results on Baseball Contest Limits Proposal By District District Votes For Votes Against Abstain #Schools #Baseball Schools I 19 0   51 13 II 0 79   89 37 III 17 0   60 2 IV 5 1 * 61 3 V 5 3 16 24 0 VI 27 0   27 0

 

*  The NSAA website reports no abstentions in District IV voting, however, as many as fifty votes were cast on other proposals in District IV, thus one would conclude that there were 44 abstentions on this issue.  Likewise, it appears that District III had a number of abstentions.

 

The next and final step in deciding whether contest limits for baseball will be put into effect is the vote of the Representative Assembly on April 3.  A three-fifths majority vote of the delegates actually voting is required to pass a proposal, thus, thirty affirmative votes would be required for passage (assuming that all 49 delegates vote).  Conversely, twenty votes against the proposal would be required to defeat it.  District II, which was unanimously opposed to the proposal in voting last week, will send seventeen delegates to the Representative Assembly.   If all seventeen vote against the proposal, only three more negative votes from delegates from other districts would be needed to defeat the proposal.

 

The number of delegates sent to the Representative Assembly from each district is based upon student population, with one delegate for each 3,000 students in grades 9-11 in that district as of the end of September.  Since District II has nearly 51% of the state's population in grades 9-11, it would seem that District II would hold enough votes on its own to prevent the proposal from being adopted.  However, the population-based representation formula is skewed by the fact that, not only do the population-based delegates vote in the Representative Assembly, but so do the four District Managing Committee members in each district.  Adding these additional four votes to less populous districts Districts V and VI increases their voting power from one vote to five -- an increase of 400%.  Meanwhile, adding the four DMC votes to the thirteen population-based delegates in District II increases the voting power in that district by only 31%.  The addition of the DMC votes results in a dilution in District II's voting power in favor of Districts III, IV, V and VI.  (For example, District V has only three percent of the state's student population, yet has a ten percent share of the voting power in the Representative Assembly.)  Thus, District II will need to find votes from other districts for a proposal that it would be able to unilaterally defeat if the Representative Assembly were based strictly on population.  (See Chart of NSAA Representation figures.)

 

It seems probable that District II will be able to find the three votes needed to kill the twenty-date contest limit for baseball.  If not, the proposal would go into effect for the 2010 season.

 

Other NSAA Proposals Considered in Second District Meetings

 

Starting the spring baseball season later.  A proposal to delay the start of baseball practice by two weeks was defeated in all six districts, however, a proposal to study the start date of various spring sports, including baseball, was passed in four districts and will advance to the Legislative Assembly.

 

Elimination of the Western Geographic-Based District in Class A Volleyball, Basketball, Soccer and Softball.  As a result of the "Great Compromise of 2007," a new district assignment system was implemented for Class A Volleyball, Basketball, Soccer and Softball in which Wild-Card Points Standings are used to assign teams to the six eastern-most districts, and a special geographic-based seventh district was created to which the western-most schools are assigned.  For example, Grand Island, Kearney, Norfolk and North Platte have their own district for Class A boys basketball.  Meanwhile, the other twenty-four eastern teams are assigned to one of six districts based upon their Wild Card Points average prior to district tournaments. Obviously, if the four western schools were thrown into the general wild-card hopper and assigned accordingly, they would face stiffer competition to reach the state tournament.  (Note:  because baseball only has two "western schools" -- Grand Island and Norfolk -- there are only six districts for baseball and no special western district.)

 

A proposal to eliminate the special western district has now been passed in three districts and will advance to the Representative Assembly.  Not surprisingly, the voting followed geographic lines with Districts V and VI voting against it.  The vote in District IV was evenly split 2-2, with numerous abstentions. 

 

Implementing Merit-Based Districts for Class B Volleyball, Basketball and Softball.  Following the success of merit-based districts in Class A in 2008, a proposal was introduced to extend that system to Class B for Volleyball, Basketball and Softball.  The three separate proposals - one for each sport - would have divided the state into three regions, two in the east and one in the west, and assigned teams to districts within those geographic districts based on Wild Card Point standings.  The proposals were defeated by an overwhelming vote in five districts with District II voting unanimously in favor of all three proposals.  Class B baseball currently uses the merit-based system of district assignments.

 

Extending NSAA's Regulatory Control to Middle School Activities.  The NSAA representatives voted in favor of numerous proposals that would extend the reach of the NSAA to middle school activities.  A package of eighteen proposals to implement regulation of middle school activities (grade six and above) came out of a special Committee on Middle School Governance established by the NSAA Board of Control.  The only middle school proposals that were not approved by at least three schools were those that imposed contest limits for the various sports and one that would allow sixteen year old students to compete at the middle school level.

 

The threshold question of whether the NSAA has the requisite authority to regulate non-member schools such as middle schools seems to have been overlooked in the middle level governance discussions and voting.  The NSAA is a private non-profit corporation comprised of 312 member high schools.  The "enabling" proposal which extends the NSAA's power to middle schools is believed by many observers, including your author, to exceed the NSAA's authority under its Articles of Incorporation.  Those articles state that “the acts of the Association shall be limited to the performance of educational functions directly related to the members.”  Since middle schools are not currently members of NSAA, clearly the NSAA lacks any regulatory powers over them.  The NSAA has tried to dance around this sticky issue with the following "enabling" proposal that was approved in three districts:

Whenever a school system has a high school that becomes a member of the Nebraska School Activities Association, all interscholastic activities involving students enrolled in grades above the sixth shall be enrolled and governed by the rules of the NSAA. 

In essence, the NSAA is saying that if a middle school is within the same school system as an NSAA member high school, participation in interscholastic activities by that middle school shall be subject to NSAA governance.  The logic of this proposal is illusive at best since the school district is not a member of the NSAA -- only the high school is.  It's a bit like saying, "if an older brother joins the priesthood, his younger brother shall be subject to his vows of chastity."  Such lateral "imputation" of membership to the middle school just because a high school in the same school system is a member is clearly illogical and exceeds the NSAA's limited authority.

 

Dual Participation.  A number of proposals dealing with dual participation issues were introduced in First District Meetings in November but none were advanced.  The term "dual participation" refers to an athlete competing for both his school team and an outside sports program or club during the season of a sport.  Currently, the NSAA bylaws prohibit such dual participation except in limited circumstances, including where an athlete has qualified to participate in the activities of an Olympic Development Program or has been selected to participate on a national team.  A legislative bill (LB 1135) was introduced by Senator Ken Rogert of Tekamah in the 2008 Legislative Session that would have prevented the NSAA from adopting rules "that bind the high school student athlete from participating, training and competing in their high school sport in addition to a club sport as recognized by the US Olympic Committee for the same type of sport during the same season."  That bill was not advanced to the floor of the Legislature by the Education Committee.

 

Last spring the NSAA appointed a Committee on Dual Participation to study the issue.  Out of that committee arose various legislative proposals, all of which were defeated in First District Meetings in the various districts.  Senator Rogert has introduced a new bill this session (LB 228) which prohibits any school from belonging to any organization which prohibits a student from participating in any activity duly sanctioned by the national governing body for that activity.  

 

The current prohibition on dual participation requires a student to choose whether to play for his school team or a club team.  The critical issue for proponents of dual participation is whether the NSAA has the right to tell students and their parents what the student may or may not do in his free time if the student has met all of the requirements for participating in his high school sport.