PIERRE, S.D. – The South Dakota High School Activities Association has proposed a change to the rule trimming the required 10 days of practice prior to the start of a season to five, while keeping the mandatory dates for the first day of practice and the first day allowable for a game in place. Waivers have been consistently granted to a school that has a snow day during the first 10 days of practice and the proposed amendment would allow teams to forgo that process. Golf and Tennis already abide by the 5 day rule. The new 5 day rule would especially help girls basketball that will be moving away from the combined State Tournaments with the boys next year and would relieve a logjam of games throughout the season. The rule was originally crafted decades ago when out-of-season rules were non-existent and it was used to create guidelines for when sports could and could not start. The amendment will be on the ballot distributed to each school for their May board of education meetings and the SDHSAA will calculate the results at the end of May.
(mitchellrepublic.com/sports)
