Do guidelines restricting fall sports coaches hurt kids, programs?

Some years only give coaches two weeks of practice before the season's first games, as the start of school creeps closer to the beginning of August and the start date for fall practices in Kansas public schools can fluctuate from year to year.
    2008 is one of those years.
    Area coaches have expressed concern, if not outright disgust, with the way the Kansas State High School Activities Association adjusts the fall sports practice schedule based on having state championships the week after Thanksgiving.
    Though the activities calendar for Kansas high schools is given to coaches five years in advance, some still say that less practice time in any given year hurts players and programs.
    "A lot of coaches have had to lessen their demands they put on the team," said Spearville athletic director and head football coach Kelly Lampe. "I'm not really comfortable with where we are as a state today."
    The beginning and end of each school year are tied to state and federal law.
    Southwest Kansas high school coaches have echoed Lampe's sentiment while trying to walk the tightrope of political correctness toward the KSHSAA.
    "I'm afraid it's harder on the students in the classroom for those first two weeks of practice," said Jason Fawcett, former head football coach and athletic director at Fowler High School. "They're tired and worn down from being at practice at 6 a.m., and then their day's not done until 7 p.m. It may not negatively affect a team's performance because the rules are the same for every school, but the kids may not be at their best in the classroom during the first couple weeks of the football season."
    But KSHSAA said no one has asked the organization's directors to consider changing the standardized calendar.
    Lampe said if a coach has borderline students on the team, they may be more likely to miss assignments during that hectic period when coaches are trying to instill their playing schemes at the beginning of the season. He said he would favor an extra allowance of three practice days before the school year started to help players in the classroom and on the field.
    "I think we manage it pretty well," Lampe said. "But that first game can be pretty ugly in Kansas. Last year, we didn't have our hot routes set or any of our blitz coverages installed for the first game."
    Lampe added that the restrictions surrounding Kansas football programs seem arbitrary. Currently, football coaches are allowed to work with six students of an 11-man football team or five from an eight-man team during voluntary off-season workouts, according to KSHSAA rules.
    School-owned helmets and pads are also prohibited from use at coaches' non-contact team camps during the summer.
    "I have a one-week football camp, but I have to jump through 100 hoops to make sure I'm doing things according to the rules," Lampe said. "Can we wear equipment? Who and how many can I practice with? What the heck is working with five kids versus working with an entire team?"

Practice regulations
    Lampe's latter questions pointed to practice regulations rather than camp regulations, but other coaches have similar feelings.
    "KSHSAA realizes that kids nowadays have more and more on their plate, but it seems like football gets regulated more than anything else," said Dodge City High School head coach Justin Burke. "We thought that it was a perfect opportunity for football to be able to move up its start date with the beginning of the school year, but that didn't happen."
    DCHS head boys' soccer coach Virgil Hutchcraft said although restrictions on his sport are more lenient as far as off-season voluntary workouts are concerned, the strict prohibition on holding mandatory practices before school starts leaves his team with two weeks of organized practices before their first tournament this year.
    "In soccer, that's pretty quick," said Hutchcraft. "It's definitely not until toward the end of the season when you see everyone's on the same page."
    Lampe and Minneola High School head coach Curtis Albin both pointed to rules governing neighboring states' football programs and concluded that Kansas was behind states like Oklahoma, Texas and Nebraska as far as getting players ready for competition at the next level.
    Lampe said he hasn't heard much concern in coaching circles about this issue, but Burke said bigger schools had worked in recent years to get more practice allowances for their teams.
    But Rick Bowden, executive director at KSHSAA, said changes to rules governing practice start dates would have to be approved by the organization's board of directors. He said a proposal to change the standardized calendar has not been brought to the board during his 16 years with the organization.
    However, Dodge City Community College head football coach Bob Majeski said in some ways, KSHSAA's rules have ensured that the best and brightest student athletes will always be in a competitive frame of mind. Since off-season football workouts are so highly scrutinized, it forces Kansas athletes to play sports like basketball or baseball and run track as well.
    "It serves them as they become more well-rounded athletes," Majeski said. "Athletes in states like Texas and Oklahoma, who are in very structured weights programs in the off-season, become more specialized, and there's no question that they are in general more physically developed earlier than athletes in Kansas. But they are already, for the most part, a finished product right out of high school."
    Majeski added that he favors well-rounded athletes for his program, as he is able to shape the players he gets into exactly what he needs to fit his team.
    He speculated that in a state like Kansas, whose four-year college programs draw at a higher per-capita rate from the community college system than states like Texas or Oklahoma, KSHSAA's football regulations may actually be helping high school athletes.
    But that isn't the way Lampe sees it.
    "Our kids are at a disadvantage," Lampe said. "[Over-regulation] costs our kids scholarship money, and we have a way to go."