Bass Fishing in Kentucky High Schools

By Chris Erwin

On Feb. 22, the Kentucky High School Athletic Association announced bass fishing could be offered as a varsity sport in high schools in Kentucky. But now, a couple of months later, there seems to be as many questions as they are answers.

Kentucky becomes the third state nationally to offer bass fishing as a varsity sport, following Illinois and Tennessee. It will be offered in the spring with a regular season scheduled from late February through mid-April. The postseason and state competition will take place in late April.

More than 60 schools across the state have expressed an interest in fielding fishing teams, according to KHSAA. Kentucky has approximately 220 public high schools.

“We are definitely interested,” said Ken Cox, athletic director for the Jessamine County Public Schools. “KHSAA has not come out with a lot of details yet, but once we learn more. It would give us an idea of which direction we might go.”

I have researched a dozen more comments from different Kentucky school officials about the idea of fielding a bass fishing team and becoming part of the Student Angler Federation.

Any school board that has an interest in getting involved needs to know some of the facts, as well as the cost of implementing the program. They are some other players who have helped in making this whole thing work, the Bass Federation and the FLW Outdoors of Benton. They have partnered with KHSAA to stage tournaments.

With the help of these organizations, the cost to other state schools has been very low, according to Mark Gintert, national youth director for The Bass Federation. He predicts similar results in Kentucky.

Gintert, who says his organization is “involved in high school fishing all over the country,” insisted that finding volunteers willing to loan their boats to local school teams or provide other assistance won’t be a problem. 

Local school boards would have to get on board and approve local school districts to become part of the program. I know that before they do, some questions need to be answered.

Here are a few of them:

Q: How do we address the student liability question?

A: Each student would join the Student Angler Federation and pay membership dues of $25.00. This money pays for a million-dollar insurance policy on each student. In addition, the policy will cover whatever boat that student fishes from. In other words, if I volunteer my boat to be use in one of these events, the boat is also insured while being used.

Q: Who will be operating the boats?

A: Each boat will have an adult captain that will run the combustion engine (big motor) while the students will be permitted to use the electric trolling motor. Students will not run the main engine. Mr. Gintert told me that 90% of the captains are the boat owners, which also offer to be adult advisors and boat captains.

Mr. Gintert has also offered to come to any high school to help organize and build a plan for any high school that wants to become part of the high school anglers’ competitive program.

The one question I was still unable to answer was what the qualifications of a high school coach in Kentucky high schools will be. I did call the Kentucky High School Athletic Association office to see if I could get an answer to this question, but I was unable to get a statement from Commissioner Julian Tackett.  It is not necessary for a coach to be a state-certified teacher for teams to compete, but each state sets the rules as far as who is qualified to become a high school coach.

For an example, we can look to Illinois. They require coaches to have a state teaching certificate, but they are not required to teach any other subject in the high school.

For more information go to: http://www.highschoolfishing.org