Roger Grossman
News Now Warsaw
The IHSAA executive board met last week, and there were two headline-making items on their agenda.
The one everyone paid the most attention to was the proposed addition of a shot clock to varsity boys and girls basketball games.
The board voted to keep the shot clock out of the high school game in Indiana this time around.
And the vote was not close, by the way. Of the 18 commissioners charged with making decisions about Indiana high school athletics, only one voted in favor of having a 35-second shot clock.
That’s a pretty resounding statement, isn’t it?
Here is the background on this.
The Indiana Basketball Coaches Association submitted a proposal in February to bring the shot clock to Indiana. Their plan would be to only use it for varsity games.
The IBCA’s polling data claimed that 68-percent of their boys and girls head coaches were in support of adding a shot clock. That’s a pretty significant number.
So where did this go wrong?
The IHSAA tours Indiana a couple of times a year to meet with principals and athletic directors with the goal of hearing concerns and sharing what is happening down in the IHSAA offices.
At those meetings, administrators were polled about their feelings about having a shot clock for basketball, and only 24-percent of them expressed support for it.
That is also a pretty significant percentage.
The administrators’ concern focuses on the costs associated with adding the shot clock to Indiana gyms.
Currently, fewer than 70 of the more than 400 IHSAA basketball member schools have infrastructure in place to operate a shot clock. That means more than 300 schools would have to spend between $5,000 and $10,000 to install them.
That’s a significant price tag.
Also, as you have read me to say in previous columns on this subject, the shot clock would require another game worker to be hired to operate it. And being the shot clock operator is hard. It’s not the same as running the game clock.
Let me give you an example: I think the crew that works the scorer’s table at Grace College home basketball games is as good as anyone around. Those young men and women are pretty sharp and they are good at those jobs.
But if you go to a Grace game, you’ll see the officials come over and check or correct the shot clock three of four times a game.
It’s not because their people aren’t paying attention; it’s because there is so much for them to consider and so many decisions to make in a split second, and getting any of those wrong has a major impact on the game.
The IHSAA will undoubtedly receive another proposal on this in a year when it can be reconsidered.
The other item they voted on was a proposal to create language in the IHSAA’s bylaws that allows students to financially benefit from their participation while maintaining their amateur status.
It’s called the Personal Branding Activities (PBA) policy, and it is, essentially, a watered-down version of college sports’ Name, Image and Likeness.
The key to this, according to comments by IHSAA Commissioner Paul Neidig after the vote was complete, is to allow students to “benefit independently from their school.” In other words, if someone wants to “sponsor” an athlete, they can do that with the stipulations that athletes cannot wear any school uniforms or gear with the school’s name or logo on them, that BPA is not athletic-related, and that the school cannot organize or facilitate the activity.
Right now, colleges are putting together NIL packages for their athletes. That would not be allowed under the PBA model in Indiana.
Students are banned from participating in PBA that involves alcoholic beverages, marijuana, vaping, gambling and other things prohibited by the IHSAA and Indiana law.
What they could do is get paid for tutoring other students or providing personal training and instruction.
This concept is in place in other states.
Truth is, this is pretty much the policy that has been in place—they just gave it a name.
Commissioner Neidig says the IHSAA is trying to establish the foundation of PBA in Indiana while they can do so on their own terms and before they are mandated to do so. He didn’t say it, but that mandate would have surely come from state lawmakers—who have enough problems of their own but never miss a chance to involve themselves in high school athletics.
