A school board in Kansas is looking to clarify a new policy that imposes severe consequences, including suspensions from competition, for student-athletes who engage in unsportsmanlike conduct on the field or court.
At Monday’s school board meeting, Wellington activities director Elly Johnson discussed some changes she wishes to implement to the policy adopted last month, including implementing a tiered system and possibly removing the immediacy of the suspensions.
While the board wasn't quite ready to adopt the full extent of Johnson's changes, they asked her to bring back a written proposal next month. In the meantime, the board tweaked current policy to pinpoint how unsportsmanlike conduct and technical fouls are defined.
According to the Sumner News Cow, the new verbiage to the current policy consists of the following (changes in bold):
“Any student-athlete who receives an unsportsmanlike conduct policy, unsporting or flagrant-in-nature technical fouls, red or yellow card, or any equivalent infraction in their sport will face an immediate suspension from competition.”
The other change was in the suspension paragraph:
In additional to the immediate removal, the coach or student-athlete will not be eligible to participate in competition at any level until they fulfill a suspension equivalent to one game.
Example: A basketball player who receives an unsporting or flagrant-in-nature technical foul the second quarter of a game will be removed for the rest of the game. They will not be eligible to return to competition at any level until the third quarter of the next basketball game.
The change addresses a loophole in the wording that defines a technical foul. For example, if a coach puts in a wrong number on the basketball scorebook, that results in a technical foul. That would not be a penalty against the player receiving the technical foul. Nor will certain unintentional infractions, such as reaching out of bounds or elbows to the face while getting a rebound.
With the new verbiage, the suspension goes into effect for a student-athlete specifically being flagrant.
Johnson said she will be revisiting the issue of immediately suspending the player. Instead, if a flagrant foul does occur, the coach should deal with it during the game to determine what to do next. Then, a mandatory meeting would be held after the contest the next day (or Monday) in which the offending player, coach, and activities director sit down and determine the severity of the crime and what occurred.
Johnson said the new suspension policy has corrected previous behavioral problems with Wellington's football team. Since the new policy has gone into effect, Wellington football has had no unsportsmanlike behavior.
“In fact, I had game officials come up to me and tell me how well-behaved the players were,” Johnson said.
A board member asked if the coaches favored the new policy. Johnson said 90 percent of the Wellington coaches favor it, and the other 10 percent would like to handle it independently.
