NC governor signed HB 91. Here’s what it means for North Carolina high school sports
The way that high school sports are governed in North Carolina is about to change.
Gov. Roy Cooper signed House Bill 91 into law Tuesday, and beginning with the 2022-23 school year, high school sports in the state will be run by a nonprofit that enters into a “memorandum of understanding” with the State Board of Education to enforce rules and requirements for teams and schools.
The memorandum of understanding can last no longer than four years before it will have to be renewed or changed.
The bill allows the State Board of Education to partner with a nonprofit organization, such as the N.C. High School Athletic Association, to run prep sports statewide with the board having oversight. The bill gives the NCHSAA until March 15 of next year to enter a formal agreement with the SBE.
The bill calls for the state board to adopt those rules, which will include student eligibility, student health and safety, penalties, appeals and game play rules. The board will also determine the fees that will be charged to schools to participate.
About two weeks ago, Bobby Wilkins, president of the NCHSAA Board of Directors, said the NCHSAA has worked with members of the General Assembly and State Board of Education to “express our concerns about the negative impact House Bill 91 would have on our member schools’ student-athletes.”
Wilkins said, in a statement, that while he and the NCHSAA felt HB 91 was unnecessary, they advocated for changes to the bill and that a revision released at the time reflected those changes, though the NCHSAA and the State Board have not reached an agreement to work together under HB 91.
“The revised legislation allows the State Board of Education to reach a memorandum of understanding with a designated organization for that organization to administer high school athletics,” Wilkins statement read. “The State Board of Education has assured the NCHSAA that it will work with the Association to reach a memorandum of understanding with the NCHSAA. Considering the changes to the legislation, and assurances that the State Board of Education will partner with the NCHSAA so that we can continue to serve our member schools, the Board of Directors of the NCHSAA does not oppose the passage of House Bill 91 as revised.”
How HB 91 was transformed to gain bipartisan support
The passage and approval of the bill by state lawmakers and Cooper comes after months of divisions between Republicans and Democrats over how best to introduce governmental oversight of the NCHSAA.
“For months we worked tirelessly to determine the best governing structure that supports our student-athletes and is transparent and accountable,” state Sen. Vickie Sawyer, an Iredell County Republican who was a primary backer of HB 91, said in a news release Tuesday. “After productive conversations with the NCHSAA, State Board of Education, Governor’s Office, and our Democratic colleagues, we’ve established a clear path forward. I want to thank Gov. Cooper for signing this bill into law.”
First introduced by Sawyer and other GOP lawmakers in July, the bill went through several transformations.
Initially, legislative Republicans who said they were troubled by what they perceived to be the association’s lack of transparency about its finances and how it administered varsity sports proposed disbanding the NCHSAA altogether.
Its replacement, they said, would be a new governing body whose members would be appointed by the governor and legislative leaders — an idea that NCHSAA Commissioner Que Tucker described at the time as a “full-scale attack” on the association.
After the proposal received strong pushback from the NCHSAA, GOP lawmakers invited association leaders including Tucker and Wilkins to Raleigh to privately discuss their differences on HB 91. Both parties emerged from the two-hour meeting saying it was productive, but a revised version of the bill conditioned the NCHSAA’s ability to oversee high school sports on a number of major changes it would have to agree to, and that led the association to oppose the bill in strong terms.
“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,” James Alverson, the association’s spokesperson, told lawmakers during a meeting of the Senate Education Committee in August. “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.”
Negotiations over the bill, which had expanded by September to include Republicans, Democrats, NCHSAA leaders, SBE officials and Cooper’s office, appeared to be headed in a productive direction when GOP lawmakers announced the parties had reached an agreement on a path forward for the NCHSAA in which the association could continue most of its functions, but under the oversight of the SBE.
House and Senate lawmakers subsequently voted to delegate a bipartisan conference committee to devise a compromise version of HB 91 that would have the backing of both the NCHSAA and SBE.
The compromise bill was reported back to lawmakers last week, and was approved by both chambers by large, bipartisan margins — passing the House 71-43 and the Senate 41-7.
State Sen. Todd Johnson, a Union County Republican who worked with Sawyer and other GOP lawmakers to craft the different versions of HB 91, said Tuesday the bill directly addresses concerns he had heard from students, parents, coaches and school administrators.
“I look forward to seeing the positive impacts of this legislation on high school athletics and want to thank all the stakeholders for working together to find a solution,” Johnson said.
This story was originally published November 23, 2021 at 12:48 PM.
