Aurora – The Colorado High School Activities Association board of control voted Thursday to test a mercy rule in basketball and to introduce a list of acceptable bleacher behavior by fans.
The biannual meeting of the 64-member board was relatively tame compared with some in the past with lightning-rod topics, but a number of revisions will have an impact on big and small schools, as well as athletes and observers.
A 38-22 vote approved drafting a list of guidelines of acceptable and unacceptable conduct by fans at high school activities. The list will be generated by the CHSAA’s sportsmanship committee.
“I think that this is a big step,’ CHSAA commissioner Bill Reader said. “We need to continue to work on sportsmanship and sports behavior in Colorado.’
The committee annually will publish a list of behavior deemed inappropriate. The general idea, according to the CHSAA, is to respect the participants.
As for the mercy rule in basketball, when one team is leading by 35 points, the teams may use a running clock. The pilot program can be tested in league games and will be discussed for wider application in the future.
In other votes, smaller schools benefited in a few areas. Baseball will increase from four to five classifications, and a school with few athletes can join another school or schools to form a co-op program.
“This will help a very small handful of schools, and it allows them to field teams that represent their school,’ Reader said.
Another approved proposal added language concerning bona fide family moves and transfer eligibility. Students from broken homes will be exempt from the transfer rule the first time they move from the residence of one parent to another.
This came after a heated debate in the fall over the eligibility of a football player at Legacy. Legacy forfeited two wins and missed the playoffs.
A proposal to add a fourth classification for cross country was rejected, one of only a few votes to fail.
Also, two new schools were introduced – Pinnacle Charter in Federal Heights and Rocky Mountain Lutheran in Northglenn.
