By Amy Batista, Special Writer
HIGHSTOWN – The world of high school athletics felt a change Monday as New Jersey high school athletic directors and principals voted to implement new policy changes at the state’s annual membership meeting in Edison.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Richard Katz updated the board members on the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) vote that took place earlier in the day during its board meeting Monday night.
“Some of them are significant for high school sports in New Jersey,” he said.
There were five proposals the NJSIAA had to decide on during its meeting.
Proposal one passed and it was to separate wrestlers from public and non-public schools at the district and regional tournament levels. All public schools will be separated into 28 district tournament and seven regional tournament sites. All non-public schools shall be separated into four district tournaments and one regional tournament site, according to the NJSIAA website.
Proposal two passed and it was to move the start-dates for fall sports to an earlier date, as an option for any league, conference or member school, according to its website.
Proposal three passed and it was moving the start-dates for winter sports to an earlier date, to allow for try-outs and player evaluation before Thanksgiving. The start of the winter sports season will be the Monday before Thanksgiving. The three days from that Monday until Thanksgiving do not count toward the six days of practice required before scrimmages may occur. No practice is permitted for the four-day period from Thanksgiving to the Monday after Thanksgiving. The Monday after Thanksgiving will start as Day 1 of the pre-season count, according to its website.
Proposal four passed and it was the creation of a separate football conference for nonpublic schools. There will be a non-public football conference, consisting of all non-public member- schools that participate in the sport of football. Non-conference play between public and non-public members shall be at the discretion of each school, according to its website.
Proposal five was rejected and it was amended the transfer rule. The proposed rule distinguishes between closed-enrollment schools and open- enrollment schools. The proposed rule increases the waiting time from 30 days (or half the season) to 30 days (or half the season) and post-season play. The existing rule applies only to transferring varsity athletes; the proposed rule would apply to both varsity and non-varsity athletes, but would treat them differently: Varsity athletes would be subject to the 30-day and post-season sit while Non-varsity athletes would be allowed to play immediately at the non-varsity level, and could play varsity after 30 days, according to its website.
“One of the votes was to separate out conferences from public and non-public schools,” he said. “Right now across the state, public schools and non-public schools play each other,” said Dr. Katz.
That vote to separate them passed by a count of 215 to 128, he said.
“So there will now be separate conferences for public and non-public,” he said. “The impact for us means we don’t play Notre Dame anymore. It really came out of Northern New Jersey where you had powerhouses like St. Joe’s and Bergen Catholic that recruited on a national level. It was passed to impact the entire state,” he said, adding it will be separated out in the coming months.
Dr. Katz said the other vote that went down to defeat was a proposed change to transfer rule.
“We also did cast our vote from our district against this,” he said.
The current rule is if students transfer from one school to another, they need to sit out 30 days before they can play, he said.
“The proposal is to also have them sit the 30 days and to have them sit out the post-season,” he said.
He said that was defeated by a pretty big margin across the state.
“We would be penalizing the kids twice,” he said.
