GAINESVILLE, Fla. – In its penultimate meeting of the 2016-2017 school year, the Florida High School Athletic Association’s (FHSAA) Board of Directors approved editorial changes to many of its policies at its April 30 meeting.
The FHSAA Board of Directors voted this morning to require all FHSAA member school head coaches and student-athletes to view the NFHS online education course “Heat Illness Prevention.”
In an effort to maximize its top priority of student-athlete safety, the Board also voted to table the agenda item regarding FHSAA Policy 41. As part of this, the FHSAA staff will research its member schools’ best practices and resources available and present its findings to the Board at its June 11-12 meetings. This time will allow the FHSAA staff to gather information from its member schools and give the Board the opportunity to make the most informed decision possible to best benefit our student-athletes.
With the exception of FHSAA Policy 41, all other policy changes were approved. A complete list of said changes can be found here.
Among those changes were the following sports becoming sanctioned sports beginning July 1: girls bowling, boys bowling, competitive cheerleading, girls flag football, girls lacrosse, boys lacrosse, boys volleyball, girls water polo, boys water polo and girls weightlifting.
In soccer news, the Board voted to change the overtime procedure in state series competition from “Golden Goal/Sudden Victory” to playing out two full 10-minute overtime periods. The rationale was to follow the recommendation from the rule book of the National Federation of State High School Associations. In addition, soccer will now have six classifications beginning with the 2019-20 school year. Lacrosse will also add a class beginning in the 2019-20 school year, moving up to two classes.
Regarding the Board itself, the group unanimously voted to reappoint the following members to the Board:
