Hey, yeah, that's Friday. Oh, you know what that means? It's busted pencils fully. Let
it education talk educated educators talking education. Dr. Johnny Lupin Nachi. Jacob chairman
of the boards producer and I'm Dr. Tim Slecker and it is Friday. You know what that means? Friday
special day. No, it doesn't mean at the end of the day you get the weekend. Well, maybe
it does mean that, but it's special for us because we get to carry or cover, I should
say, cover those. What some people call extracurriculars, we call them essential curriculars and
here we are on Friday. We're in the spring. As Johnny would say, I think we've left sprinter
although who never who knows up in Wisconsin. It's right. You never know. But it is home
hurdles in home runs, not home runs and hurdles. Hey, whichever way you want to put it back
and we have our good friend, civic media zone, Jimmy Cusca, Jimmy, what's happening, our
friend? You know, you mentioned the winter stuff just just last night. No, two nights ago,
there was snow on the field at my at my niece's softball game, north of highway 8. So I don't
know that we fully escaped the grasp of winter yet in certain parts of Wisconsin, but I am
certainly looking forward to the warmer temperatures and warmer days ahead. Well, Johnny, there
you go. So it's still winter in Wisconsin. Yeah, but you know what it is, Tim, and we haven't
said this in a while. TGBP Friday. Oh, yeah. I've got bus and pencils Friday, but yeah,
we're here. Hurtles and home runs. One of our favorite guests comes on here. You know,
some are regularly. I'd say regularly. So it media is Jimmy K chopping it up. We're talking
spring stuff, though. And especially kind of wanted to do an update because it's been
talked about as winter sports came to a close, especially as like Jacob and I talked last week
about NCAA, you know, frozen four. We're both hockey fans and I know Jimmy K. You call the hockey
games and you follow hockey out there as well. But we had that really awesome story of western
Michigan, you know, winning the national championship for the NCAA men's division one. And we said,
you know, uniquely, it's maybe one of the last stories of an era of college sports where nobody
on that team is getting NIL money. Now that won't be true moving forward as, you know, their
coaches announced it's not like by any sort of like protest to NIL or anything. But the last
team probably will see for a while of college athletes, you know, going as far as they did and
being as successful as they have been without any NIL funding. So, you know, that brought up
in the little NIL discussion. And Jimmy, too, we wanted to check back in with you because we know
and especially those of us, you know, closely connected with public education and high school
sports around the country, especially in Wisconsin, that it's been sort of, you know, it's been
tickling the, the desks of every athletic director and superintendent out there is like, what is
going to happen with NIL and high school sports? So just a little update because I know that's
something that's on the docket for this summer. So as we were talking about it, we say, hey, we
got to ask Jimmy Kay about NIL and high school sports as part of things, too. You got a little
update. I don't think much is probably changed, but maybe for our listeners, put into context,
hey, is that for high school, too? So here's the update, at least in the state of Wisconsin,
a week from today, the WIA membership will actually vote on amending the state constitution
for sports, not the overall state constitution. They'll vote on changing the WIA constitution to allow
for name, image, and likeness opportunities. Wisconsin is one of the last handful of states to
approve this. I think we're at, I think we're at 42 or maybe even 43 states at this point that have
some form of NIL, whether it's been through a state association vote like this. And in a couple of
states, it's actually been decided by the state legislature. And that's never a good thing. You
don't want your state legislature dictating policy for, you know, for state athletic associations,
although they certainly try in Wisconsin to do that repeatedly. Even this year, we've had,
you know, four or five bills go through. That's beside the point. But the NIL amendment is the
fifth constitutional amendment that is up for a vote with the annual meeting coming up. Oh,
week from today, that's on Friday, April 25th. It's in Steven's point. So every school district
in the state gets a vote on this. It's typically attended by district administrators types,
whether it's an athletic director or a superintendent. That's the usual people that are in the vote.
Each school, I should say, each school that is a WIA member gets one vote in Wisconsin just
about every school is. And what they'll be deciding on among the other issues is whether or not
they're going to allow for NIL opportunities. What's different in Wisconsin is that the opportunities
would be restricted someone in that the athlete would be ineligible, the student athlete would be
ineligible if they were to use, you know, their school or their conference or the WIA in some kind
of NIL deal. But there's also a factor that I think the most controversial part of it for people
who support it certainly is that if you're a business or, you know, someone sponsoring NIL and you've
contributed directly to the school and their athletic fund in the form of any kind of donation
or to that school's booster club that is associated with the school, then that would create an
eligibility situation. And that's a measure meant to keep from, you know, pumping a bunch of
money into a program and, you know, also, you know, giving it to the student athletes too. So
they're trying to eliminate some fuzzy gray areas with that. It's a measure that I think will
probably limit, especially in smaller or rural and especially public schools, how much a student
athlete can actually get out of all of this, but it does open the door to join collectives and
things like that. Wisconsin's rule also went to allow for signing with an agent so you can't say,
oh yeah, I'm going to talk to my agent and get a deal like that. You can't do that in Wisconsin.
And obviously, the other clear restrictions are on school employees, even coaches from being
part of the NIL agreement. So Wisconsin is putting up a lot of restrictions on what it'll look like
here. It will not at all look like what happens in college where it's a little more free flowing,
but in high school NIL opportunities would exist then in the constitution and wouldn't be grounds
for immediate in eligibility. It's a hard word. Man. So in other words, yeah, I remember the first time
you introduced this to me, I was kind of like, what? High school kids can potentially sell their
name, image and likeness. I'd never heard of that. And so here we are. It sounds very restricted,
though, what you're saying is what's going to happen in Wisconsin, but that it can happen.
You know, as we say, a Tim bomb, question out of left field or right field or maybe jumping over
the track hurdles since we're in hurdles and homeruns. Are there, I mean, are you aware of or do you
know of any students that or schools that might be in a position where this is going to be a reality
that they're going to take advantage of this rule if it's approved? So the the number of students
that were ruled in eligible last year when they presented this, because this got voted down at
last year's annual meeting. And mostly because schools said they didn't have enough time to review
the material, they mostly it became broadly aware to schools and administrators about two months before
the vote. Well, now we've had 14 months. So now everybody knows this is coming. And it didn't fail
by that many votes last year. It was roughly 60 40, which in terms of an annual meeting is pretty
close. And I think a lot of people just needed more information. They did say that of all their
ineligibility cases that it was a handful a little more than a dozen that if we have this role
that those those cases would have never come before that WIA. So you're talking about a very small
selective number of student athletes that would benefit from this. This isn't going to be a thing
where like here in my town, my high school football program with, you know, we're approaching 40 on
our roster. We're all the sudden we're all we're all going to have, you know, these, you know,
$100,000 endorsements from the local car dealership or anything or we're talking about
a lot of smaller deals that are going to be mostly for those kids that are ticketed for division one,
you know, the student athletes that are, you know, clearly above and beyond, you know,
and I have a lot of attention paid to them because they're, you know, potential college athletes,
right? So those are going to be the students that get it. I don't see this being like where 90%
of high school kids get it. I think this is really a 1% deal to be honest with you. But I think the
key thing in this is that this year, this has had unanimous support at every committee level moving
up, you know, through the coaches advisory councils and everything like that. So the Board of
Control as well, which is Ben split on a lot of interesting issues. For example, adding a shot
clock in basketball, they actually voted down that measure this year. So, you know, there's a lot
of things they get divided or even vote against. But the fact that it had 9-0 support, the Board of
Control, and then the advisory committee and advisory councils both were unanimous in sending
this along. I think tells you where this is heading. It is not probably the most impactful thing,
believe it or not, on the annual meeting agenda for student athletes. There's one other thing that
we can talk about it if you want. This one though, I think when people hear NIL, they think,
oh, it's college athletes flashing bags of cash, right? That is not how it's going to be in Wisconsin.
This will truly be for a handful, maybe less than a percent of student athletes in the state.
Well, I got to put one out there in nomination and Johnny, I'm sure you're going to back me,
but we want to see Coach Kuska on Weedy's boxes, man.
Oh, no, I'm it.
You know, that's right there. I know. I know. You say, which is named after me at different places,
but I've never been on a cereal box.
Well, you know, come on, man. Never say never. Yeah, you know, or maybe, you know,
it starts something new and maybe get on like a raisin brand or something like that,
you know, Coach Kuska. No, I'm just or fruit loops, right?
That wouldn't be much much more.
Love that. But yeah, I think for for the listener too, I mean, in Wisconsin, this, you know,
is something that maybe more people are aware of. I got to think that there are also people
like me out there going, I didn't really realize that high schools were in a position where name,
image, and likeness is something that could, you know, potentially put money
in the pocket of high school athletes. And so, you know, just the awareness of that.
What else though? Jimmy said something else is going on there. Bring it up, man. Let us know.
Yeah, there are five amendments that are being proposed at the annual meeting. And I know
everybody's really tuned into the NIL thing. Here's the thing though, just about every state has it.
Wisconsin's one of the very last to adopt it. So if for whatever reason, it doesn't get voted
in this year, the WIA is already entered into an NIL agreement with a collective. And I would
think that at this point that it's just going to happen. I mean, everything is pointing towards
it happening. When I was at the Wisconsin football coaches association clinic two weeks ago,
the general impression I got was that this will easily pass. This wasn't the thing that was most
talked about. What the football coaches talked about in their business meeting this year. And what
I've been hearing a lot about is the amendment on summer coaching contact. Now let me let me just
I'm going to try to do this in a minute or less to explain it. Summer coaching contact is where
if you're a coach of a sport, you have access to a student athlete during the summer between June
1st and July 30th. In some states, it's 10 days, some states 15 days, some states, there's no
restrictions in Wisconsin. It's five days. And that in a coaching contact day, it doesn't mean an
organized practice or anything like that. Coaching contact could be as simple as telling a kid,
hey, you know, I seen you kicking a field goal. You actually got to walk like this to go to it.
That's a coaching contact day if you do that, even just something as simple as that. If you're
coaching the sport and you instruct a kid on how to shoot a free throw or swing a bat in the summer
out of season, that constitutes a coaching contact day. So the amendment would change it in Wisconsin
that there would be no limit on days except that you between June 1st and June 30th and then
between July 8th and July 31st. So there's a week for July 4th so they block off as a dead week.
But the whole summer, you could in theory have a coaching contact day every day outside of that week
in July. And for football, there's a seven day rule that there's a dead week, seven days before
the start of the first day of practice, which is the typically the first Tuesday and August.
So there's a there's a few days at the end of July that football can't do this either.
Coaching contact days, I have to remain everything else stays the same with coaching contact days.
They have to be voluntary. They can never be mandatory. You know, the coaching contact days can
use school resources, things like that. But the biggest change obviously is going from having
just five days, five total days to now you could have it as many days as you want between June 1st
and July 31st, except as I mentioned, the two dead weeks. The one for every sport July 1st is
7th and then the football one for a week before the first day of practice. And the conflict in this
comes up because there are not only do we have actual sports seasons that extend in June
with tracks, softball, baseball, and soccer. I think golf typically wraps before. Some of
years at Raps in May, but I think this year they play the first week in in June. Regardless,
the spring sports go into June. But there's also conflicts with things like the summer,
you know, summer rec leagues, travel ball, club ball, you know, all the various sports that happen
in the summer. And there's a lot of concern that this is going to put pressure on those programs
that the students are going to be asked to go to the coaching contact days if they organize a
practice that the, you know, it can't be mandated, but you know what that means in a high school
in that culture. And all it's you miss it, you miss it now kind of thing. And also from the
school side, where a lot of coaches at the clinic when they did the straw poll, it was about 50-50
and the people that spoke against this rule were just concerned that it would put additional
pressure on coaches to just be available all summer. So now you're impacting vacations,
you're impacting that family time. Coaches are typically teachers or in my case, a volunteer,
you know, and have kids in the school. And there's life that happens away from it. But all of a sudden,
now you're taking summers away because you have to have coaching contact days. So there's a lot
of pressure both ways kind of on this, whether it's the student athlete or whether it's the coaches.
I know, and it's anecdotal, in our case, we're just looking at this as, well, after a wait
when we can tell a kid, hey, here's how you long snap a football or here's how you shoot a free throw.
Like pretty simple stuff, right? Then we have to worry about having the one of five days used up.
But there are a lot of concerns both ways. And I really see this being probably the most
I don't want to say controversial. It's not the right word. But this will probably be the
most hotly debated of the five amendments that go up this year at the annual meeting.
I got to say, yeah, this is one of those. I remember, Johnny, maybe you'd do two.
You know, high high school, it was football most of the time that was the big issue.
It was just like in the summer, as you pointed out, you know, we'd be weightlifting.
You know, and the football coaches would be in the weight room and then potentially say,
hey, over in the gym, you might find some footballs over there.
Johnny, you know what I mean?
Yeah, I do. I do. And I like this because it's been a gray area for too long. And, you know,
anytime you can kind of figure out how students have an, like young people have an offseason,
you know, coaches put things in the perspective because, you know, that technically,
that offseason is important for them to, you know, to rest, to rejuvenate, to grow, to participate
in summer activities and other sports and families plan vacations and things like that. So,
so I think this is a great thing. It's, you know, it's a great thing to figure out.
Yeah, yeah. And of the five, I think I said, the five amendments, it's probably the one that's
going to get, I think the most careful consideration by administrators, especially athletic directors
because in Wisconsin, violations of the contact A rule is up to you, the school athletic
director and administration. You have to self report these things. There's no officer from the
WIA checking your weight rooms every morning across the state of Wisconsin or anything.
So this also eliminates administrative work, which is why I think and why the, the straw pulling,
even though the coaches were sort of split, the, the general consensus is that the administrators
support this and that it'll probably go through, even though it won't be a slam dunk vote,
it'll, they, they expect it to go through just quickly. The other amendments that go through and
I'll, I'll do this very quickly because not all these apply to everything. One of that would
affect fans is that if you're ejected from a game in addition to being suspended for one game,
you have to take a course on sportsmanship for the NFHS before you can go to another game for
that school, which is just another way of trying to corral fan behavior that had unanimous
a sport all the way through. Great idea, right? I mean, you gotta curve it somehow.
So that's one of the other proposals. Another one just tries to match up freshmen teams
with JV teams in terms of season length, you know, that's not going to get a whole lot of attention.
And then there's a petition to include cross country in the group of sports that don't have to
be subjected to the performance factor, which moves schools up based on performance at state
needs, cross country. And I can speak to this right from our district here in Boschabell,
our girls cross country team never won the sectional, never won the state meet, but still got
elevated because they made the state meet a couple of years in a row. In all of a sudden,
Boschabell division three schools competing against schools with five times its enrollment
across country meets in the playoffs. So cross country was advanced to the,
advanced to the meeting as well for that part of it. So those are the five. And like I said,
NIL and summer contact are definitely the two highlights of what's going to happen at this
annual meeting. Man, it's a lot. Holy cow, you know, who knew there was so much going on.
Jimmy, which is why we love having you come on to Busted Pencils to give us those, you know,
the updates and all of that. So people are aware of, you know, what's happening. I get coming
back to the summer one to just make mention you brought up a point that I think is really valuable.
And that is, you know, everything about the players getting unfair, you know, maybe opportunities
or even as Johnny pointed out, hey, what about students who actually want to go on summer vacation,
but feel kind of the pressure to show up for summer, you know, the summer days. But the coaches
themselves too, who say like, I want to break and even them then potentially feeling the
pressure to say, well, I guess I can't take my family vacation because I got to offer some type
of summer coaching. So yeah, Johnny, you know, I'm just thinking about this. I think this is good
for everybody here because, you know, as we say, I guess what coaches also need some downtime and
need some time to breathe. And Johnny, you, you got to be thinking the after the hockey season,
man, I need a, I need a little bit of time to take a breather.
Uh, it's, it thinks so Tim, but we kind of, you know, as coaches kind of go full bore year-round.
But we do kind of, like I said, it's important to have some kind of downtime, some transition to,
you know, I'm sure families out there appreciate when, you know, coaches are, are throttled a little
bit on what we can do in the off season because we do need, we do know our, our players need that time
to, you know, regenerate energy to focus things to spend time with families, you know, to do those
other sports too that are really important to youth development, you know, to get out and golf
for us hockey players. Let's say, hey, go play tennis, go golf, go do something for a few months,
and, you know, and put some regulations on it. But, you know, if we had a, if you just left it
up to us coaches, you know, you'd probably have, you'd probably have a season year-round.
Oh, oh, my goodness. Well, Coach Kaskin, Jimmy K, Civic Zone. Thanks for busting pencils with us
again, my friend. Oh, I appreciate it. And I'm with you. The, the break is much needed. The
anecdote here is that the dead week of football, the, there's always a long running Twitter thread
every year of football coaches that was that week. Where are you at? And how are you spending
practice? And there's people in Florida, Texas, California, just getting now going fishing up
in international falls. There's always a, it's always a fun thread every year. Yeah. And now for your
moment of Zen. Patriotism doesn't mean support of government. Patriotism means support of the
principles it's supposed to stand for. Thanks for listening to this episode of busted pencils,
hurdles and home runs with Civic Media's own Jimmy K. So remember to grab more busted pencils
podcasts packed full of fully-led education talk on Apple podcasts, Spotify. And of course,
on the Civic Media website or you can catch us at bustedpensils.com. Hey, don't be late for a
home room on Monday and be sure to grab next week's class in session on Wednesday. And if you can,
join us on Saturdays. That's right. Busted pencils broadcast at 3 p.m. central time every Saturday
across the Civic Media network stations, or an hour of your favorite blue collar scholars,
him and Johnny and keep busting pencils.