New Law In California

How do you have double-days with 2 days of contact, 90-minutes total per day? Most of us are reading the 90-minute limitation as total time of full contact during the practice, not the full duration of the practice. From what we've been talking we don't see much of a real impact to our practices other than the hitting. And we are concerned that we won't have the time to get the 'contact shy' players into the 'contact neutral' category.

The question I have is how do you ensure that Johnny's mother/father/helicopter doesn't get the sheriff after the HC/staff/AD for having practice too long. It's not a organization policy, it's a state law. It is possible that instead of losing practices or a reprimand there could be legal action. Will the state association be the hammer for the state and handle enforcement without question when the state says to penalize some coach? Will the state association actually care - this is not their policy/law although they were supporters. How do you protect yourself from Johnny Law if Bobby gets a concussion in a game and mom/dad/legal eagle say it's because he wasn't prepared for the contact in practice? Video everything?

The other provision, the concussion protocol, that's no big deal because most teams I know had some form of that in place already.

Full text of the bill AB 2127, signed into law on 07/21/14.
leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB2127

How many other states have laws governing the practice time and such? Not state association, but the state laws? I'm not up on that aspect, it might be a lot, but it bothers me that we now have a state law that usurps what our state and section associations should have done.

Lots of questions here and nobody to ask.

Here's the part I don't understand and that concerns me.

1. Is the state saying that you can have 2 90 minute full contact practices?
2. Or is the state saying that you cannot have more than 90 minutes of contact in a practice and no more than 3 hours of contact throughout the course of the week?
So in other words, if I have 3 120 minute (2 hour) practices a week and only half of each practice is considered "full contact" then I'm in compliance?

Option 2 sounds more feasible because what is a "full contact" practice. I'm sure there's no one on here who goes balls to the walls full banging practice for 90 straight minutes. What if receivers have a 15 minute catching drill segment in practice? That's not full contact. What about those who go in "thud" tempo? Is that full contact?

It's just a shame that coaches in California (and all over the nation) are busting their butts to find ways to protect their players while still holding constructive, high energy practices, but some bureaucrats in Sacramento who know absolutely nothing about football sign of on a law simply to look as if their protecting children. When is the last time these politicians spent their entire winter, spring, and summer (yes football is year round in California)trying to improve the lives of young men through the avenue of football.

This infuriates me because it really is a slap in the face to coaches who put in countless hours.
How about these politicians worry more about budget deficits and the welfare problem we have in California as opposed to telling high school coaches that we don't know what we're doing.

The crazy part is that the game is safer now than it ever has been before.

The issue here is that we don't know what 'full contact' is. The simplistic reading is the 90 minutes of full-speed tackle to the ground scrimmage type practice. I haven't been part of something like that since I've been coaching. Another reading is that it might be as much as OL going 1-1, inside runs, 7-7's if it's full speed, regardless of tackle or not. It's not clear right now. And we don't know who to ask. So while you might not go 90 minutes of full-speed tackle to the ground scrimmage, you might cover 110 minutes from the opening OL 1-1 to the last throw in the 7-7, going over the 90 minute limit. How about special teams - how do you do that without going full speed, excluding tackling. If that's the case then we are in violation of the law, not a section policy/rule, the law. I would also consider that we could do 20 minutes here, 10 minutes there, 20 minutes here, adding up to several segments of contact that add up to 90 minutes.

The insurance forms that the players sign (on the programs I have been with) have a statement along the lines of "Football is dangerous. You can get hurt, badly, including brain damage and death." The parents have to sign that and sometimes the players do as well. I signed those forms for my kids and it was always in the back of my mind that something might happen. Playing football is a voluntary activity, nobody is making kids line up and play if they don't want to be there.

My concern is that this is legislated by the state rather than by CIF and the sections. I don't find the practice parameters or the concussion protocols to be too difficult. My concern is that little Johnny gets rocked in a game and mom/dad/legal eagle sue - who? the school? the coach? the AD? because he didn't get the skills development necessary to ensure he knew how to hit and get hit. Or on the other hand, that practice was too long and exceeded the state law. What documentation does the HC have to keep to show that Johnny had all the chances that everyone else did? Will we see a HC/staff get hauled off by the sheriff because a practice was too long?

I'm sure there will be lots of clarification before the next season gets going.

Pertinent text:
SEC. 2.
Section 35179.5 is added to the Education Code, to read:

35179.5.
(a) (1) If a school district, charter school, or private school elects to offer an athletic program, it shall comply with all of the following:
(A) A high school or middle school football team shall not conduct more than two full-contact practices per week during the preseason and regular season.
(B) The full-contact portion of a practice shall not exceed 90 minutes in any single day.
(C) A high school or middle school football team shall not hold a full-contact practice during the off-season.
(2) For purposes of this section, a team camp session shall be deemed to be a practice.
(b) The California Interscholastic Federation is urged to develop and adopt rules to implement this section.
(c) As used in this section:
(1) “Full-contact practice” means a practice where drills or live action is conducted that involves collisions at game speed, where players execute tackles and other activity that is typical of an actual tackle football game.
(2) “Off-season” means a period extending from the end of the regular season until 30 days before the commencement of the next regular season.
(3) “Preseason” means a period of 30 days before the commencement of the regular season.
(4) “Regular season” means the period from the first interscholastic football game or scrimmage until the completion of the final interscholastic football game of that season.
(d) This section shall not prohibit the California Interscholastic Federation, an interscholastic athletic league, a school, a school district, or any other appropriate entity from adopting and enforcing rules intended to provide a higher standard of safety for athletes than the standard established under this section.

• Yes, definitions need to be found: full contact (i assume) will be "Live" contact.
  
• How do you do special teams without going life? Thud.
  
• How will it be enforced? it won't, unless a cop is sitting at every practice of every football program, and parents won't sue anymore than they do now. 

but again, if you already arnt cutting back on live contact, you are seriously behind the curve

so my current take on it

Not as big of a deal as i once thought

i am hoping they cant the beginning of the regular season as everyone's scrimmage... which would give us 30 days prior to that we can begin padding up... which would put us at the last week of july

gives us pretty much all of June and July to focus on S&C... and some on field no contact type of stuff

which isn't that insanely different than what we do now

we didnt pad up until the first week of July this year, just bumping it a couple weeks back next year

theres no way we have ever gone 90 minutes of full contact in a practice
and with the exception of working tackling drills, we NEVER take anyone to the ground in practice, it is all thud