High school sports: UHSAA says no to spring football

SANDY — Spring will be reserved for baseball, track, soccer, tennis and golf.

Football, however, will have to wait until after Memorial Day.

Football coaches wanted the ability to practice without pads or helmets after the state track meet for several reasons, including longer preparation for seven-on-seven tournaments in early June and allowing college recruiters to see players actually running drills against their teammates.

But the executive committee of the Utah High School Activities Association voted down the change in its Wednesday meeting. They worried that athletes who play other spring sports would feel pressured into either dropping the other sport or trying to juggle two sports in the same season.

"Let's end one sports season before we begin another," said Craig Hammer, a Region 9 representative.

Marc Hunter, executive director of the Utah Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, presented a survey of coaches that showed they overwhelmingly supported changing the start date to the Monday after the state track meet.

"It's an overwhelming response, and so our athletic directors unanimously voted to recommend it to the executive committee," Hunter said. "If anyone thinks that everyone is waiting until after Memorial Day, I think that'd be wrong. ... Honestly, they're not waiting for May 30. ... The UHSAA doesn't want spring football, so I'd say this is a compromise."

But the executive committee members voted unanimously to leave football's start dates as they are and not allow the early practice times.

President of the Utah Football Coaches Association James Cordova was disappointed with the decision, which he says hurts local football players. College coaches have a 30-day window in May to travel to high schools and evaluate players. Currently, Utah coaches aren't allowed to have those kids run any kind of drills where players go against each other.

"It's not the seven-on-seven," he said. "There is just no other way to showcase our kids. Our skill kids don't get recruited because coaches can't see them in that evaluation period."

He said that 30-day window in the spring is "huge" for recruiting.

"We're kind of stuck with no real way to showcase the kids we have," he said. "We don't have club football. ... We can send our kids to these combines to be seen by recruiters, but what if kids don't have the money?"