The 2009-2010 school year just concluded, but the work of the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association, the state’s governing body for high school sports, is never done. The NIAA will hold its quarterly Board of Control June 16-17 at the Holiday Inn in Sparks and a few items on the agenda have local ramifications.

Here’s a rundown of issues that could affect athletic programs in the Rail City.

- Dead Periods -

•Within the past five years, the NIAA enacted dead periods during which coaches could not schedule activities for their student-athletes. The aim was to let athletes try out for a sport without the pressure of missing offseason workouts for a separate sport and have extra time to study for finals and tests among other reasons.

While there does not seem to be widespread violations of the policy, there have been instances where the rules have been broken. The NIAA does not have a penalty system set up for violators and leaders at the organization believe its time to implement a protocol for violators.

“We’re discussing the penalty phase right now,” NIAA Assistant Director Donnie Nelson said. “The Executive Director has the power to put a program on probation or limit game contacts, but we’ve got nothing in writing about what to do specifically. So we have to clarify that. Should penalize a program, a school or coach and how so?”

Sparks schools are held to a higher standard than many across the Silver State. That’s because the Washoe County School District has longer dead periods than the NIAA.

“The school district’s dead periods are actually two weeks longer than the NIAA’s and I’m not sure a lot of people know that,” Reed High Athletic Director Ron Coombs said. “From our standpoint here at Reed, I can’t speak for other schools, but I think our coaches do a good job with it. We haven’t really had any dead period issues.

“Still, it’s important to have something down. There’s been rumors about people breaking the rules since I played. It is important to have a policy down that outlines the steps to be taken if you violate the rules.”

- Game limits for individual sports -

•The NIAA’s Board of Control may re-examine their game limit for individual sports such as golf, cross country, tennis, wrestling, swimming and track. There has been some call to give those sports a uniform number as each has a different contact max as of now. Additionally, the Board must further define contact for some sports.

The debate stems from a boys golf controversy in southern Nevada. Some Las Vegas-area prep golf programs were counting nine-hole golf tournament as half a contact since a normal round of golf is 18 holes. The NIAA contact limit for boys golf in the recently completed school year was 14.

“Some programs played as many as 24 tournaments, well over the allowable number of contacts. We didn’t want to penalize schools before the state tournament, but it’s something we need to address and clarify for all,” Nelson said. “For example, the contact limit for wrestling is well defined. Should we give a uniform number for all the individual sports? Should the numbers change. We’ll have to discuss it and come up with a plan.”

- Boys, girls golf start dates -

•Nearly all NIAA sanctioned sports have an official start day for the first possible day of practices and the first potential day for season-opening games. That rule forces programs to adhere to the NIAA’s mandatory 10-practice minimum before a first game.

The lone sport exempt from the 10-practice minimum is golf. Girls in the fall, and boys in the spring do not have a 10-practice minimum. That has left some golf programs playing official tournaments before the initial game start date, even playing competitive golf on the first day of allowable practices.

“Some coaches thought that since there was no 10-day practice rule for golf they could begin playing tournaments on the first day of practice,” Nelson said. “Can they play on the first day of practice? Should we have a 10-practice rule for golf or should we just make them wait until the first game day? We’ve got to decide what to do there.”

The 10-practice rule was originally waived for golf because the sport does not have the physical demands of other sports. Victor Sherbondy coaches both the boys and girls golf programs at Spanish Springs High. He understands there is not much of a necessity for a 10-practice rule, but also said there’s probably a happy medium before playing competitively on the first day of team practice.

“I do think you need to have an active tryout process. I always do a week, five full days,” Sherbondy said. “I’m kind of torn on it. It’s probably fine to have a tournament in five- to 10-day range. It’s not like you need to build up stamina. Overall, I’d have to lean toward the side of it being OK to have the early contacts.”

- Championship event coaches attire -

•After hearing some concerns that a handful of coaches were “underdressed” for state championship events, the NIAA is looking at implementing a dress code for its championship events. Nelson cited a policy adopted by wrestling coaches that calls for coaches to wear pants, not jeans, and either a shirt with a school logo or a collared shirt to events. He said something similar could be put into place by the NIAA.

If the NIAA’s Board of Control adopts a dress code, it’s not likely to come under much fire.

“It’s one of those things where you’d expect the best of people,” said Spanish Springs Athletic Director Art Anderson, a former wrestling coach. “I like the wrestling rule when it was proposed and approved. We should be more professional in what we do and how we behave. It could be a very simple rule.”

- Discussion Items -

•The aforementioned issues were all action items and the NIAA’s Board of Control could vote to implement new policy, but it also has a lit of discussion items to address, which could call for rule changes at future meetings.

Among the items on that list is a quick summary of the realignment, which is set to go into place for the 2010-11 school year. The realignment moved various schools into different competitive classifications and set up leagues based more on geography than enrollment.

The Board is also set to discuss tiebreaking procedures for No. 4 seeded playoff teams. The fourth seed is the final berth in most team sports. Thus when teams tie for fourth a tiebreak procedure often awards one team a playoff berth and leaves one or more out of the postseason mix. Critics have long said a play-in game between tied teams should determine the playoff qualifier and not tiebreakers.

There are mixed feelings on the issue.

“I like the idea if two fourth-place teams tie they should play each other,” Anderson said. “In more cases than not, those are two pretty equal teams. What better way to decide it than a game? The hard part comes on when you schedule a play-in game. You must have time to play the tiebreaker game. If the regional tournament starts right after your regular season, that’s tough.”

Coombs had similar sentiments.

“I think it depends on the sport,” he said. “If it’s a sport where you are used to playing multiple times a week, it could be a good idea. I’ll leave that one up to the NIAA. A play-in probably is the most fair way ... On the flip side, how many times do you want to put the kids on the floor?”