Dear Cedar Bluffs Families,
In the State of Nebraska all high school sports are governed by the Nebraska School’s Activity Association. Each year as a member school, we are given an opportunity to suggest changes in the by-laws and rules that govern our schools. However, the process is not an easy process. There are two possible ways for changes to be made to policies, by-laws and rules governing the NSAA. One process involves proposals coming out of a committee called the “Classification Caucus Review Committee”. The Classification Caucus Review Committee shall be comprised of two representatives from each of the four (4) NSAA classifications representing Classes A, B, C and D, and the Chairperson of the NSAA Board of Directors. The NSAA Executive Director or designee shall serve in an ex-officio capacity. This process generally speaking has a better chance of making changes but still is required to be ratified by schools in the April assembly. The other process involves a school district submitting a proposal by October 1st to the NSAA. All proposals are verified by the NSAA to meet all requirements of a proposal. All schools in the State of Nebraska are divided into 6 districts, and the proposal written by a school will come before the District that they are a member of in a meeting in November to be reviewed and voted on by that District. If the District votes to move the proposal forward, it goes to all the schools in a Statewide meeting in January. If it gets enough votes to pass in January then it goes before a Legislative Commission, which is part of the NSAA executive board in February and if it meets all requirements of the legislative commission then it goes before all schools in a Representative Assembly in April where it can ratify, making it the new rule of law.
Cedar Bluffs has submitted a proposal this year to our District, which is the 2nd District. The second district is mostly schools from the Omaha Metro area and surrounding schools. This is not the first time I have submitted a proposal and all my proposals in the past have not made it past our district with enough votes. The proposal we have submitted this year would allow students in class C and class D sized schools to participate in one NSAA sanctioned “team” sport and one NSAA sanctioned “individual” sport at the same time. Currently, if you play Men’s Golf in the Spring you are not allowed to also participate in Baseball in the Spring or if you compete in Women’s Volleyball in the fall, you are not allowed to participate in Women’s Cross Country, etc. Other States, like Kansas, South Dakota or Iowa allows students to participate in more than one activity during a season. When I coached football in Kansas, my starting quarterback was a State qualifier in Cross Country. He would practice with the football team all week, play the football game Friday night, and then go run Cross Country on Saturday. It is an opportunity for small schools that have less athletes to have more participation. Larger schools don’t need this as they have plenty of kids to fill all their rosters. Last time I proposed this proposal was 2014 and the proposal was defeated by less than 5 votes. At that time the proposal was written to affect all sizes of schools and most Class A and Class B schools voted no, that is why this year it was written for smaller schools only. However, all schools in our district still get a vote.
Some of the arguments made for not passing this proposal last time was that kids are already too busy. Which I said, then they have the choice not do both. Then AD’s made the argument that it would just be too hard to schedule around one or two kids. Then I said, doing what is best for kids sometimes takes effort. I didn’t win any points in the room for that comment. Anyhow, November’s meeting is coming up and I am hoping for good things. #Wildcat Pride!