Lawmakers say NCHSAA can oversee high school sports, but with some major changes
Lawmakers previously in favor of eliminating and replacing the North Carolina High School Athletic Association advanced a new version of legislation Thursday that will keep the 108-year-old association in place, but require it to comply with a number of changes to how it oversees high school sports.
The Senate Education Committee passed the amended version of House Bill 91 on Thursday morning after more than an hour of discussion. Under the bill, the NCHSAA could continue to administer high school athletics in the state if it enters into a memorandum of understanding with the State Board of Education. That agreement would require the NCHSAA to make several major changes to how it currently oversees more than a dozen varsity sports across at least 420 member schools.
Tensions that have been building over the course of GOP lawmakers’ investigation spanning several months surfaced during Thursday’s meeting, as NCHSAA representatives forcefully pushed back against HB 91.
Among other things, the legislation would require the NCHSAA, a private nonprofit, to:
▪ Publish proposed changes to game-play and penalty rules on its website, and allow for public comment.
▪ Apply and enforce rules set by the board of education, which would have the authority to deem any rule proposed by the NCHSAA unenforceable.
▪ Comply with open records and public meetings laws and apply federal privacy standards to student records.
▪ Adopt an internal ethics policy that would “(require) board members to avoid conflicts of interests and the appearance of impropriety.”
▪ Submit to an annual audit by the North Carolina state auditor.
▪ Reduce annual fees for member schools by at least 20%, if the association’s fund balance reaches 250% of its expenses from the previous year.
The association would be prohibited from:
▪ Retaining more than 33% of the net proceeds from any state tournament games.
▪ Soliciting grant funding or sponsorships for anything other than state tournaments.
▪ Regulating or controlling the intellectual property of schools, including team logos, mascots, and the audio or video of games outside state tournaments.
▪ Designating preferred vendors for member schools to purchase equipment from. Bill sponsors previously said they had heard from schools that said they could not afford equipment costs arising from the association’s preferred vendors.
During discussion of her amendment Thursday, Sen. Vickie Sawyer, an Iredell County Republican, defended the terms the NCHSAA would have to agree to, and rejected criticism from Democratic lawmakers and NCHSAA representatives in attendance, that the latest version of legislation was being rushed and was crafted without adequate input from the association.
Late last month, a small group of GOP lawmakers, including Sawyer, who have been leading a months-long inquiry into the NCHSAA, met privately for more than two hours with several members of the association’s board of directors, including Commissioner Que Tucker and Bobby Wilkins, the board’s president.
Democrats, NCHSAA criticize plan
Some Democrats, including Sen. Gladys Robinson of Guilford County, expressed disappointment that they weren’t included in that meeting. Robinson said Democratic and Republican lawmakers are equally responsible and concerned about high school athletics in the state, and said focusing on just “one entity” makes the inquiry partisan.
“Maybe there’s something we can do collectively, together — it would really, to Sen. Robinson’s point, help for all of us to be in the room together, to have all the entities together to try and solve through this, because I think there’s a real opportunity to do so,” said Sen. Jay Chaudhuri of Wake County, the Democratic whip.
Chaudhuri said there is likely bipartisan agreement that some of the issues raised by Sawyer and her GOP colleagues, particularly the association’s appeals process and vendor policy, need to be addressed. But he urged Republicans to slow down their advancement of the bill, which if passed, would give the SBE and NCHSAA until Oct. 15 to reach an agreement.
The bill’s new language also authorizes the SBE to enter an agreement “with one or more nonprofit organizations” — which would potentially allow a different nonprofit governing body to take over the NCHSAA’s current responsibilities if the association doesn’t meet the terms laid out by lawmakers, Sawyer said.
Tucker, the head of the association, said she and other board members continue to want to work with lawmakers and the SBE, and said the NCHSAA isn’t opposed to entering a formal memorandum of understanding, as long as it’s done “without coercion” or “political influence.” She also said the association’s board has acknowledged there are some changes that need to be made.
NCHSAA staff also used the time for public comment to read a letter from Wilkins, the board president who is also the principal of Hendersonville High School and wasn’t able to attend Thursday’s committee meeting, requesting that lawmakers allow the NCHSAA to independently negotiate terms of an agreement with the SBE.
“We’ve come to the table when we’ve been requested, we have provided all the information that has been requested, and we’re willing to work with you,” said James Alverson, the association’s spokesperson. “But it’s really hard to work with people that are holding a gun to your head, for something that’s going to damage what you do for student athletes.”
Toward the end of the meeting, moments before the committee advanced the amended bill, Sen. Amy Galey, an Alamance County Republican, criticized Alverson for his choice of words, saying it was a “really inappropriate analogy in the context of what’s going on in America today.”
HB 91 is expected to be considered next by the Senate Rules Committee, which would decide whether to send the bill ahead to the Senate floor for a vote.
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This story was originally published August 25, 2021 at 6:51 PM with the headline "Lawmakers say NCHSAA can oversee high school sports, but with some major changes."
