HS Dead Period
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Anonymous
| What is a dead period/week? Does that mean coaches can't talk to kid but kids can still get together and train? What are the restrictions/rules exactly? What are the loopholes that coaches take advantage of? Thanks |
Anonymous
| dead period refers to college coaches typically - your question makes no sense the way it is posed |
Anonymous
| High School sports have dead periods/weeks. This week is a dead week and no practices for at least football can be scheduled. Does this dead period only pertain to football? I know it's spring sport tryout week. |
Anonymous
| It's the week of tryouts at our HS. So this week is tryouts for all spring sports. That means fall and winter sports cannot have any scheduled green days/weight room days. |
Anonymous
| Yes, February 23rd-March 9 is a dead period for all Fall and Winter Sports such as football. In other words, you cannot practice or have contact with your football coach during this period. I do not know what the repercussions are if the coach violates a dead period. |
Anonymous
| what state is this relevant to? |
Anonymous
|
Dead periods are rolling and aplicable to certain sports based on calendar season. Each calendar season has its own dead periods.
During dead periods coaches are not permitted to have instructional contact with their players, on campus or off campus. They are allowed to supervise unstructured activities for their players, but not instruct. So, in basketball, a coach may open the gym for his players during dead periods and stay there for safety reasons, but coach may not instruct his athletes. The rules also extend to off campus teams. For example, in basketball, an employee high school coach may not coach more than one player from the school on an off campus team (excluding his own children) during the dead period. Sophisticated schools get around this. For example, a dominant soccer high school program coach may trust one of the fathers in his program pipeline with multiple sons at the school where the father played high level college soccer and the father is not an employee of the school. The father takes the varsity boys and volunteer coaches them in summer league play during the dead period. Indeed, the HS coach may even show up to their summer games but is under strict instructions not to talk to his players or vice versa because that could be deemed a violation of the dead period (yes, this is an oddly specific example). Dead periods are meant to target several things: 1. Most important, give the kids a break from a domineering coach. 2. Allow kids to sample other sports. A domineering football coach would absolutely run his program 12 months out of the year to the exclusion of other sports. 3. Allow for rest and recovery. Some important notes, usually, if your school has an athletics PE period for your child’s sport (your kid goes to a basketball period instead of regular PE during the school day), the dead period will not apply to the PE period. Dead periods typically apply to all coaches affiliated and paid by the school. If your school hires contract coaches just for the season (e.g., the freshmen team coach) dead period rules still apply to that coach. Schools/parents will absolutely report dead period violations and most schools take it seriously. Dead periods have one massive loophole: if your coach makes instructional time available to the entire student body, then it is typically not a violation of dead period rules. A coach could theoretically host an open gym for the entire school with basketball instruction during the dead period. Dead periods are near universal. I am unaware of any HS athletic conference that lacks dead periods. Just look at your bylaws. |
Anonymous
OP Here. I am in Virginia. |
Anonymous
Thank you for your response. Good info. |
Anonymous
| So my kid played football at a FCPS HS last Fall and he said some of the players were invited by the head football coach, who is a PE teacher at the HS, to go up to the field DURING school hours and train this week. That would have to be a violation, correct? Also, the head coach also is the head coach of a flag/two-hand touch team that is just a bunch of kids from the football team. They practiced all through the winter and even this week and will practice next week. The team has tournaments coming up. Is that legit for a head coach to coach this team as well? |
Anonymous
Possibly, possibly not. You have to read your conference manual. Our conference manual calls Thanksgiving through early May a blackout period for football. All instruction during that period has to be fundamental, no pads, no strategies and practices cannot resemble normal in season practices. Cannot coach off campus teams. The PE period gives a ton of loopholes. Two hand touch, flag and (popular in the south) 7-on-7 is probably sufficiently different that it skirts the blackout period, but just depends on wording of your conference. Usually the penalty for violation of a dead period can include ineligibility for the involved players so most coaches steer clear of rule violations. |
Anonymous
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VHSL Dead Periods
No off season programs can hold conditioning sessions, meetings or any session (on campus or off campus) for their sport during these VHSL dead periods. Only the in season sports can use this time for tryouts and in season practice sessions. 24-25 .....June 30 - July 6, 2024 (No activities for any sport) .....July 28 - Aug 11, 2024 .....Nov. 10 - 25, 2024 ....Feb. 23 - March 10, 2025 |
Anonymous
| Why aren't private sports subject to these kinds of regulations? |
Anonymous
Because you need a governing body to impose rules that are in the best interest of the whole. High Schools play in athletic conferences/state leagues that mandate what is best for the whole even if it is not the best thing for a coach in his specific sports. Private off campus leagues don’t care about other sports and they just want to generate more revenue. Which requires more games/seasons. |