{"id":161919,"date":"2026-02-20T00:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T00:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/161919\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T00:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T00:12:07","slug":"florida-senate-unanimously-passes-teddy-bridgewater-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/161919\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Senate unanimously passes \u2018Teddy Bridgewater bill\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text text--small text--normal text--primary\">Published:\u00a0February 19, 2026 at 6:39 PM<\/p>\n<p>Legislation allows high school coaches to use personal funds to assist playersSenate passes &#8216;Teddy Bridgewater bill&#8217; <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014 The Florida Senate unanimously passed the so-called \u201cTeddy Bridgewater bill\u201d on Thursday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The legislation allows high school head coaches to use personal funds to provide financial assistance to their players, as long as they report what they spend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The idea for Senate Bill 178 emerged after Bridgewater, a decorated NFL player and Miami native, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/news\/local\/2025\/07\/15\/support-grows-for-teddy-bridgewater-amid-suspension-from-miami-northwestern-coaching-job\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/news\/local\/2025\/07\/15\/support-grows-for-teddy-bridgewater-amid-suspension-from-miami-northwestern-coaching-job\/\">suspended from coaching<\/a> at his alma mater, Miami Northwestern High School, in 2025. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">At the time, he admitted to providing meals and transportation for his players, which was against the rules at the time. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">A similar bill is currently moving through the Florida House.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body__copyright\">Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published:\u00a0February 19, 2026 at 6:39 PM Legislation allows high school coaches to use personal funds to assist playersSenate&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":{"0":"post-161919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tallahassee","8":"tag-tallahassee","9":"tag-tallahassee-headlines","10":"tag-tallahassee-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}