UIL Legislative Council Meeting Results

Date: Oct 17, 2005
Category: Legislative Council

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AUSTIN, TX- Two additional state football champions will be crowned in Conference 1A, coaches who have been ejected will face altered penalties, and reclassification and realignment policies for hurricane displaced students have been established due to decisions handed down by the Legislative Council of the University Interscholastic League on Monday.

The twenty-eight member committee made up of superintendents from across the state voted to create Division I and Division II football brackets for Conference 1A 11-Man and Conference 1A Six-Man beginning with the 2006 football season. Of the three teams per district that advance to the playoffs in Conference 1A, the school with the largest enrollment in the district will automatically advance to the Division I bracket, while the remaining two schools will advance to the Division II bracket. There will be two state champions crowned for Conference 1A 11-Man and two state champions crowned for Conference 1A Six-Man. This change would create 12 state champions in football as opposed to the current 10 state champions in that sport.

In other action, the Legislative Council of the UIL passed an amendment to the current UIL Constitution and Contest rules that would require all coaches who have been ejected from a contest or any football coach who is given two or more 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalties during a contest to appear before the State Executive Committee of the UIL. If the ejection is not overturned, the coach will be subject to an automatic penalty of a public reprimand and one-year probation and will be required to attend a Coaches and Officials Positive Expectations (COPE) program conducted at the UIL office. Additionally, all coaches will be required to annually attend a UIL COPE meeting prior to their sport season. Currently, the automatic penalty for any coach who is ejected or any football coach given three or more 15-yard penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct during a contest is an automatic penalty of either a public reprimand and one-year probation or a reprimand, one-year probation and suspension from the next regularly scheduled contest. Under current rules the coach in question is not required to appear before the State Executive Committee.

The Legislative Council also addressed the question of UIL reclassification and realignment policies with respect to students displaced by hurricanes. The Council approved a policy of counting 50% of those students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita for the 2006-07 and 2007-08 realignment period. While those schools affected by the displaced students will be required to report the total number of displaced students in their enrollments, only half of those students in question will count toward their UIL reclassification and realignment numbers. 

Upon recommendation by the Medical Advisory Committee of the UIL, the Legislative Council passed an amendment to establish practice limitations for UIL activities that conduct practice outside of the school year. Beginning in August 2006, student-athletes shall not engage in more than three hours of practice activities on those days when one practice is conducted. On days when more than one practice is conducted, student-athletes shall not engage in more than five hours of practice total, and there shall be a minimum of one hour of rest/recovery time between the end of one practice session and the beginning of another.

Additionally, the UIL Legislative Council voted to pass the following items to take effect August 1, 2006 if approved by the Commissioner of Education:
ο Altering the scrimmage limitation for soccer;
ο Requiring one-day tournaments to be held on Saturday;
ο Adding the Illegal Steroid Parent and Student Notification/Agreement Form to the list of UIL required forms;
ο Allowing a school district to issue individual player protective school equipment to students who have completed their eligibility in the sport involved for use in any all-star game;
ο Increasing the coach/sponsor annual award limit from $300 to $500;
ο Adopting elementary and junior high social studies contests as an official UIL event.

The Legislative Council also instructed the UIL staff to study requiring helmets in pole vault competitions, creating a Spanish version of UIL forms and creating a sportsmanship and steroid education program.

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