The Teddy Bridgewater Act<\/a> gives Florida public school coaches the OK to use their personal funds to assist student athletes by purchasing food or helping them get to and from practice and games without fear of punishment.<\/p>\n\u201cI mean, I think it\u2019s a good bill. You know, we have a lot of kids that, especially in football, we have a lot of kids that come from rough backgrounds, come from some rough homes, ne parent homes and even no parent homes,\u201d said Osceola High School Head Football Coach Eric Pinellas. \u201cSo I even say with our guys that you never know once they leave when their next meal is going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pinellas just finished his fifth year at Osceola High and says this law will be very beneficial for the kids.<\/p>\n
The act limits spending to one coach per team and $15,000 per coach per year.<\/p>\n
It also requires them to report the purchases they make and get parental permission.<\/p>\n
Pinellas feels those rules could use some adjustment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI agree with the part about letting the district know because you don\u2019t want anybody around here spending 30, 40, 50 thousand dollars or nothing like that,\u201d Pinellas said. \u201cBut if I\u2019m buying pizza or I\u2019m buying sandwiches, subs or something like that, that we\u2019ll eat on school campus, I don\u2019t see why that should be an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Families of some of the athletes also weighed in on the new law.<\/p>\n
Josephine Johnson showed up to Friday\u2019s jamboree to cheer on her grandson, a rising sophomore running back.<\/p>\n
She says that enabling coaches to do a little more for their players can make a big difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt speaks volumes. And I think that helping the young men goes along with them playing football and getting their education,\u201d said Johnson. \u201cIt will complete some of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The law also says that personal funds cannot be used for recruitment or personal gain.<\/p>\n
Enforcing that aspect of the law is something that 17-year Gateway High School Head Football Coach Marlin Roberts thinks will be crucial.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome guys care more about winning than they care about the well-being of these kid\u2019s man. But I do think it\u2019s a good thing as long as it\u2019s not used for bad, then I like it,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n
When both coaches were asked what they think can be done to prevent misuse, they candidly said they\u2019re not sure but feel some sort of oversight committee is needed to keep things in check.<\/p>\n
Implementing the law across the state is something that will be handled by the FHSAA and the individual districts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KISSIMMEE, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a pair of bills Friday focused on high school sports. One helps…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1747,4318,3140,1238,14105,28,30,29,1236,1745,3745,115,139,1976,99,110,1237,135,26795,835],"class_list":["post-282742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-app-high-school-sports","tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-sports","tag-brandon-spencer","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-sports","tag-high-school-football","tag-high-school-sports","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-osceola-county","tag-politics","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-tampa","tag-topic-latest-local-sports","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282742","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=282742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}