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Florida cutting high school contests

By Erin Buzuvis, Sudha Setty, and Kristine Newhall

In a cost-reducing effort, the Florida High School Athletic Association came up with and initially approved a plan to cut back the number of games teams play during a season; 20 percent across the board. Except for football.
You would be right if you too thought that wasn't actually going to fly. But even when threatened by lawsuits when he said the school board would not reconsider the decision until the fall (keeping the cuts intact), FHSAA head Roger Dearing did not blink--at first.
But apparently he is blinking now. The Florida Parents for Athletic Equity and Title IX advocate and law professor Nancy Hogshead-Makar, who calls Florida home, may have made him a little nervous. The parents' group and Hogshead-Makar vowed to file litigation if decision was not reconsidered. But after consulting with Dearing, Hogshead-Makar has said there is a plan in the works. FHSAA gets a 10-day reprieve from a lawsuit in exchange for a plan that would save an equitable number of girls' sporting contests (equitable to the number of football-playing boys that will benefit from their no-cut status). Additionally, the issue of cheerleading as a sport will be considered. Florida sanctions cheerleading as a sport and they count it in their Title IX compliance.
I am interested to see what FHSAA comes up with--especially in regard to cheerleading, this summer's hot topic, apparently.

Full post as published by Title IX Blog on June 06, 2009 (boomark / email).