PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — The West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission board of control on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed an out-of-season coaching compromise proposal, sending it to the state board of education for a final vote later this summer.
“We had a committee that got together, including coaches, athletic directors, principals and super superintendents,” said SSAC executive director Bernie Dolan. “We went all the way around the corner and came back to this proposal, which was pretty much a consensus among that group, that this was the best way to move forward.”
The proposal, which the SSAC board of control passed by a 104-8 margin, would still offer a three-week window (consecutively) in the summer for teams to practice, but each county would set its specific dates. The current window has preset dates locked-in statewide by the SSAC.
Under the proposed changes, schools would be able to schedule that three-week window anytime from the end of baseball season to the beginning of the fall practice season. The week of July 4 would be the one dead week.
Coaches also would be given six ‘flex” days to meet with athletes out-of-season and outside of the three-week summer practice window, opening up more access for recruiting visits from college coaches.
More drastic proposals have been dismissed by the state board of education in both of the last two years, including an option last year which would have opened up access year-round. That measure, however, barely passed the SSAC’s board of control by one vote, 54-53, and never had much momentum going into the state board’s ultimate decision.
“We feel very good about this proposal,” Dolan said. “We didn’t have a consensus in our group (last year) and I think we have solved that problem.”
If approved this summer, the six flex days would be implemented during the 2016-2017 academic year, with the movable summer practice window starting in the summer of 2017.
“Based on the way that this proposal came out of our meeting with such overwhelming consensus, I think the state board will look at the fact that we pulled all parties into this and this is what we came up with,” Dolan said. “I would hope that they look at it favorably.”
The SSAC board of control voted on three proposals Tuesday, also approving a measure to allow middle school wrestling programs to exempt a conference tournament from their maximum 16 matches.
The third proposal, which involved the football playoffs and classification enrollment numbers for all three classes, was rejected by a significant margin.