Statewide Iowa (RI) — A coach who’s also a member of the Iowa House is proposing an expansion of the time coaches are not allowed to have contact with Iowa students who participate in high school sports.
Representative Skyler Wheeler, a former baseball player at Northwestern College, is head coach of the baseball team at Unity Christian High School in Orange City.
That seven-day period starts on a Sunday in late July and Wheeler’s bill would extend it for three more days.
The bill also calls for a one-week “no contact” period in November, a no-contact period from December 25 to January 1, and a seven day “spring break” that would give students a break from all sports.
The bill easily cleared the House Education Committee last week on a 20-3 vote, but not after some push back from Representative Daniel Gosa. He’s a former Davenport School Board member who has coached his son’s Little League baseball team.
The non-contact and no practice policies outlined in the bill would also apply to theater productions, cheerleading, show choir and band.
Wheeler says if you were to poll the students, they’d probably say they’d like more free time between sports seasons.
Wheeler says the bill may be altered to line up better with winter sports like basketball and wrestling, but Wheeler says the goal is to get a vote in the full House on a uniform time-off-from-sports policy that gives kids a break.
A designated “family week” started in the summer of 2021 to give Iowa high school students, coaches and teachers a week away from practicing for sports or band.
KIWA Staff Photo
