High school cross-play moves step closer to fruition with State House committee vote

Alvin Briggs, who recently announced that he would step down as the executive director of the AHSAA, met with legislators on the bill that would allow schools in different associations to play but the AHSAA Central Board did not act on the objective in the most recent meeting. (File Photo)

By TIM GAYLE

A bill permitting cross-play between members of different high school athletic associations was approved by the State House Education Policy Committee on Wednesday and will now move to the full House of Representatives for a vote.

The legislation, orchestrated by State Representative Troy Stubbs of Wetumpka, sat in legislative committee for more than a month as local legislators talked with the executive directors of the two largest high school athletic associations in the state, Michael McLendon of the Alabama Independent School Association and Alvin Briggs of the Alabama High School Athletic Association.

Cross play would be permitted if the Alabama High School Athletic Association, a member of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), asked the national association to admit the Alabama Independent School Association as an affiliate member as other states throughout the country have routinely done.

Multiple meetings with Briggs left legislators hopeful that legislation would not be necessary, but an AHSAA Central Board meeting on Wednesday failed to bring any action from AHSAA officials who apparently ignored all suggestions from the Legislature.

“We had a public hearing several weeks prior to last Wednesday,” Stubbs said. “Alvin Briggs participated in that public hearing in the Education Policy Committee and I spoke and we shared with the committee the purpose of the bill and our agreed-upon efforts to try and move this forward in an administrative manner, with the hope that (AHSAA officials) would pursue a change in their bylaws that would accommodate the objectives of the bill that I had proposed.

“We were basically waiting until their meeting on Wednesday to see if they were going to move forward as we had hoped by making an administrative change. My desire would be for them to do the right thing in an administrative manner and not have to be involved.”

Meetings that included Briggs and a legislative delegation of Stubbs, state Sen. Clyde Chambliss of Prattville and Sen. Will Barfoot of Pike Road made it clear that legislators wanted to avoid legislative action if possible but were prepared to move with a bill crafted after a Georgia bill that required cross-play in 2016.

“No public K-12 school that benefits from state funding may be a member of an athletic association that prohibits … its member schools from competing or participating in a contest against or otherwise engaging in an athletic event with a non-member school,” reads a section of the proposed bill.

Research conducted for the legislation revealed that of 19 states surveyed throughout the Deep South and along the Atlantic coast, only Louisiana and Alabama do not practice competitive choice among associations. Georgia became the most recent state in the Deep South to allow cross play in its competitive practices through legislation passed in 2016, serving as the model for Alabama’s proposed bill.

McLendon made a written request asking the AHSAA Central Board at its January meeting to either change its bylaws prohibiting cross-play or to endorse a move to recognize the AISA as a NFHS affiliate member. The request was never placed on the board’s agenda.  

That led local legislators to request a meeting with Briggs in an effort to change AHSAA bylaws or make an endorsement to the NFHS at the Central Board meeting on Wednesday. This time, the legislators were ignored.

“There was a letter sent to all of the (Central) Board members from both (McLendon) and the AISA and a separate letter from myself, Sen. Barfoot and Sen. Chambliss that basically explained what we were trying to do,” Stubbs said. “I will say this: Alvin Briggs never gave a promise or a guarantee that the (Central) Board was going to agree to this. It wasn’t presented in that way, but it was presented in a way that he felt that the board had all the information and that he was going to advocate for it.”

Instead, Briggs announced to board members on Wednesday that he would be retiring from his position in September.

“We’ve been working for months, hoping to resolve something directly with the Alabama High School Athletic Association but as of Wednesday, it became evident that it wasn’t going to happen,” McLendon said.

The board’s indecision triggered a move by Stubbs to get his legislation ready for a vote.  

“By mid-morning, I had received word they had voted it down,” he said. “I was not there so I don’t know what was said or how it was presented. But when I received word it was voted down, we were already on the agenda for that education policy meeting at 1:30 p.m. I was prepared to go into that committee meeting and say, ‘I’m happy to announce the AHSAA voted this morning to change their bylaws so there’s no need for this bill’ or to go in that committee and say what I did say -- they did not follow through and make that change, so it’s my hope that we as a legislative body and as a committee will advance this forward with the hopes we can get it on the floor and move it through the chambers.”

While local legislators had met privately in the past with Briggs and McLendon, the AISA executive director was quick to point out the proposed legislation involves not only AISA schools but the other three private school associations that field athletic programs in the state of Alabama -- the Alabama Christian Athletics Association, the Alabama Christian Sports Conference and the Florida-based Panhandle Christian Conference, which has members in south Alabama.

“This is more than just AISA,” McLendon said. “We’re the largest non-public school association, but this is about more than AISA.”

Briggs’ retirement will leave the new AHSAA executive director with several complicated issues involving private schools in the state. Private schools that are members of the Alabama High School Athletic Association are assigned a multiplier that has been in effect since 1999 and elevates their enrollment as well as Competitive Balance Factor that was initiated in 2018 to penalize successful programs by moving them up in classification.

Private school administrators have made it clear they would like either the multiplier removed or Competitive Balance applied across the board to all schools in the association. Those requests have been ignored.

Now, the AHSAA may find itself in the crosshairs of the Alabama State Legislature after ignoring all requests to look into the feasibility of cross-play between athletic associations.  

“I hope that we can have it on the House floor in the next week or two,” Stubbs said. “I do know that it is on the Senate committee agenda next Wednesday. Sen. Barfoot is carrying the same bill in the Senate.”