MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - While the TSSAA's Legislative Council closed the door on a proposal to split all public and private schools into separate divisions Thursday, it left open the potential for change on a smaller scale.
With a 5-4 vote, the council voted down the proposal by administrators from Lewis County and Trousdale County to force all 24 private schools that currently compete in Division I to move to Division II.
Instead, the council asked the TSSAA staff to come back by mid-September with proposed changes to the association's constitutional by-laws that would resolve the most prominent concerns of its member schools.
Those concerns include student employment, more commonly known as work study, tougher recruiting rules, tuition for athletes' siblings and non-faculty coaches.
"I'm pleased the council members made this decision so we can explore every option and address these main issues by tweaking our by-laws rather than just vote for a complete split," TSSAA executive director Bernard Childress said.
TSSAA logo
Bernard Childress, executive director of the TSSAA."It took us more than a year to finally get the member schools to tell us specifically what their main concerns were. Now we know what to address and how to address them, and I feel confident our member schools will be satisfied with the changes we propose."
Student employment, or work study, is used by schools that charge tuition and is the practice of allowing a student-athlete or his or her immediate family to work for the school to help pay tuition.
Recruiting has been an equally hot issue that has long pushed those who favored a complete split. However, Childress noted that the last eight proven recruiting violations were committed by public schools.
"I know the issue started with public schools pointing the finger at private schools, but there will be some public schools who won't be real happy with some of the recruiting rules we propose, because it will also affect things they have been doing," Childress said. "If our members want to stop recruiting we can do that, but we'll make it so that we stop it completely."
Childress added that the TSSAA would rely on member schools to police themselves when it comes to not only recruiting but also the work study issue. He said any school that is reported and found to have violated those rules will be dealt with severely.
The council also voted, by a 7-2 margin, to add independent school representatives from the state's east, middle and west regions to both the Legislative Council and Board of Control beginning with a Dec. 1 election. Currently there are no independent school representatives on the TSSAA board or council.
Soddy-Daisy principal Danny Gilbert, who represents the Chattanooga area on the council, voted for the complete split but also voted in favor of adding private school representation on the council and board.
"There were a lot of factors, not just one reason, that I decided today to vote for the split," Gilbert said. "To be honest, I wasn't comfortable either way, because I could see both sides of that issue. I believe it will probably work out better in the long run to let the changes in our by-laws dictate which division a school competes in. That way it puts the decision onto the individual schools to decide if they're going to abide by the rules to remain in the public school division or not.
"If they do make the proposed changes that we suspect they will to the work study issue and recruiting especially, then I think it will move the schools that have been the biggest concern for public schools into Division II, but it's done in a way where we aren't forcing anyone into that division.
"There was some concern that if we forced them to move, it could open the organization up to a potential lawsuit."
A TSSAA staff member confirmed the specific date for by-law changes to be proposed would be announced in the coming weeks.
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293.