No early start for football season

El Dorado High School head football coach Scott Reed watches his players during practice on Thursday, Aug. 9, 2013.

El Dorado High School head football coach Scott Reed watches his players during practice on Thursday, Aug. 9, 2013.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

A proposal that would have moved the high school football season in Arkansas up one week was voted down Wednesday during the annual meeting of the Arkansas Activities Association's governing body at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.

The proposal failed by a 129-54 vote (37.6 percent). It needed two-thirds majority to pass.

The proposal received a do-pass recommendation in June at the AAA's annual summer workshop, but it was not received well by the majority of high school football coaches. The proposal would have been instituted in the 2016-2018 reclassification cycle.

The purpose for the proposal, according to the AAA, was to avoid the possibility of inclement weather during the state playoffs. The high school state playoffs were pushed back one week last December, forcing the Class 4A, 3A and 2A championship games to be played Dec. 20-21, the weekend before Christmas.

Coaches believed moving the first week of the season forward would have put athletes at risk because they would have been forced to practice and play in higher temperatures.

El Dorado Coach Scott Reed said Wednesday that several coaches brought up questions to him about the proposal during the All-Star Week in June.

"When the coaches got the proposal, right down the line, this really goes against everything we've been changing to make the game better and safer and better for our kids," said Reed, who is president of the Arkansas Football Coaches Association. "They were all against it. We just encouraged them to go to their superintendents and tell them why."

The proposal would led to three of the state's six state championship games being held Thanksgiving weekend, which could have put them playing on the same day as the Arkansas Razorbacks.

"Thanksgiving weekend is a big college football weekend," El Dorado Superintendent Jim Tucker said. "It's typically our lowest gate for playoffs. Most Arkansas college coaches attend the finals. If the finals were that weekend, they wouldn't be able to attend. That was one of their concerns."

Another proposal to limit the amount of full-contact in football practices passed by a 163-21 vote and will go into effect immediately.

During the preseason, schools cannot have consecutive days of full-contact practice after Day 5. Teams can have three days of full-contract practice a week during the regular season. Junior varsity and varsity level games are included in those three days. The period begins six days before the first regular-season game and continues through the state championships.

Teams are allowed three full-contact practices per week during the spring with no full-contact practices occurring on consecutive days. Spring games will count as a full-contact practice.

"It defines it for you," Reed said.

Sports on 08/07/2014