Shakedownsports.com

Sorry North Carolina high school athletes—the party is over. You’re no longer going to be able to express your feelings about what’s happening on the field.

Charlie Adams, executive director of the N.C. High School Athletic Association, said he plans to push a zero tolerance policy for profanity to the NCHSAA Board of Directors to vote on at their winter meetings. If it passes, Adams said he expects to levy fines next fall against schools whose athletes violate the language policy.

Many states already have rules against profanity that call for fines ranging from $100 to $250. Adams says that for now no players will be punished with suspensions.

Call me old fashioned, but when a player misses a big shot or gives up a home run he should be allowed to yell “fuck” in frustration. This rule can’t help but make me think of Amare Stoudemire getting suspended for taking two steps toward Robert Horry after Horry body checked Steve Nash. You just can’t strictly enforce a rule that is counter to the brain’s natural reaction.  You know what happens when players have to bottle up their frustration?  They end up charging into the stands and punching fans.

The good news (or bad news, depending on your view) is that because there are no suspensions and the schools have to pay the fines, there’s really still no incentive for players not to use profanity.   My suggestion is for players to protest the rule by have a contest to see who can rack up the most fines.

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A quarrel between Kentucky’s public and private schools could affect many of the state’s high school athletes. Last week the Kentucky Board of Education voted in favor of a proposal that would force athletes who switch high schools to sit out a year. The proposal, called Proposal 2, will sill have to pass the approval of a state legislative committee before it can become an actual rule.

Proposal 2 is a response to public schools’ displeasure that private schools are dominating them in sports, and well as to the perception that private schools are illegally recruiting athletes under the pretense of recruiting students. The proposal hopes to cut down on the illegal recruiting of middle and high school athletes as well as prevent kids like O.J. Mayo from repeatedly switching high schools to further their athletic careers. If athletes want to be recruited or move to a better team, they will have to sit out a year.

Proposal 2 does have numerous exceptions. Athletes won’t have to sit out if they transfer because of a family move, transfer to a small school, or transfer to a school within 20 miles of their house. Still, private schools remain skeptical, saying they oppose the proposal because it restricts school choice. Proposal 2 is the first of its kind, and there’s no doubt that other states will be paying attention to the effect it has on Kentucky’s high school athletes.

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Oh those pesky lineup cards. They are at the heart of a dispute that has led the Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin high school baseball team to file a restraining order on an Ohio state playoff game. The order seeks to resume a game the team was forced to forfeit, and it also requests the temporary postponement of the subsequent playoff game featuring the team that beat them.

The dispute arose during last week’s regional championship game when NDCL brought in a pitcher who was not on the 18 man lineup card. The team claims the player had played in the previous game and was left off the lineup card by accident. The player then threw one pitch, at which point the opposing team alerted the umpires that the player was not on the card. After a series of phone calls to the Ohio High School Athletic Association, the game was ruled a forfeit due to the use of an ineligible player.

NDCL claims that according to the rules the player should have been ejected, and the game should have resumed at the point he entered. Hence the restraining order, which hopes to prevent any baseball from being played until the matter is resolved. See Elijah, you’re not the only baseball player who has recently become familiar with restraining orders.

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Somebody besides seedy agents and ESPN has decided to make money from high school sports—-the high school’s themselves. Seattle recently became the latest city to approve a pay-to-play program for high school sports. Under the proposed program, students must pay $50 to play one varsity sport or 75$ for two or three. That’s great—-high school athletic programs are now operating under the same discount system as bedroom furniture at Wal-Mart.

You might be wondering why the schools need money so bad. Apparently the reason is that they lost a lot of vending machine revenue when it became forbidden for the machines to sell soda and junk food. So the schools lost money because of a measure designed to keep kids healthy. Then to recoup that money, they do something that influences kids to not be healthy. That makes a lot of sense.

The Seattle school system will at least allow some students to pay a reduced fee, and they may waive the fee altogether in cases where students are unable to pay at all. Still, this seems like a poor way to raise money, and it undoubtedly will result in a lot fewer high school student playing sports. In the end, the only thing this system helps is the chess club, which can now use its free membership as a major selling point.

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