MIDVALE — While college football coaches spend a lot of time looking at high school athletes each spring, the rules governing Utah teams makes it difficult for prep coaches to showcase their players.
At best, the rules were confusing. At worst, they were unenforceable.
So Matt Hammer, the president of the Utah Football Coaches Association and head coach at Weber High, presented a change that would simplify the rules governing spring football practices.
“In February we started talking about how we could simplify the rules or guidelines in place now,” Hammer said. “The biggest thing …we felt like (UHSAA) had a policy in place that was unpoliceable at times.”
The proposed change would have no restrictions during out of season dates providing the following conditions are met:
- No protective gear may be worn by players.
- No football competition with other schools until after Memorial Day.
- Abide by football moratorium dates. (Two weeks following the state championship games — Nov. 23, 2015 through Dec. 6, 2015 — and for two weeks beginning with the start of tryouts for spring sports — Feb. 29, 2015 through March 13, 2016.)
The principals who make up the executive committee were asked to discuss the proposed change with their regions, while the UIAAA (Utah Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association) would use its network of athletic directors to seek opinions from the state’s 105 sanctioned football teams. Hammer said he’d talked to about 40 percent of the state’s coaches and they expressed unanimous support for a change. In addition to clarity, it allows coaches to support the development of their own players in a way that compliments the high school programs.
“It allows us as coaches to coach our kids in the right ways,” Hammer said. Currently, many parents see private coaches or clinics as their only option. That can be expensive, as well as be very different from what the high school coach is teaching.
“Right now (the policy) is handcuffing us as coaches, and parents feel that’s the only outlet for their kids to get coached,” Hammer said.
UHSAA associate director Ryan Bishop, who oversees football, said there isn’t a lot of change in the proposal.
“All we want to change is the part we’re having a hard time interpreting,” he said.
When questioned about how this would impact participation in other sports, UHSAA executive director Rob Cuff said he thought the policy supported participating in other sports.
“I think the non-competition piece is important,” Cuff said, “because that’s what would draw kids away from baseball or track.”
and for two weeks beginning with the start of tryouts for spring sports
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