CIF requires helmets for adult baseball and softball base coaches

Adult base coaches in CIF San Diego Section baseball and softball games must now wear protective helmets.

The CIF Board of Managers approved the requirement Jan. 21 with all board members who were present supporting the motion except for St. Augustine High School athletic director and former baseball coach Mike Stephenson, who represents non-Diocese Catholic schools on the CIF Board of Managers.

“The recommendation is that they wear the full helmet. The requirement is that they wear the skull cap,” said CIF commissioner Jerry Schniepp.

Base coaches in professional and National Collegiate Athletic Administration baseball are required to use a protective helmet, although NCAA softball base coaches are not required to wear helmets. The CIF had already required any student base coaches to wear helmets.

“For students coaching first and third base they have to wear a full helmet,” Schniepp said.

CIF Board of Managers chair Jeffrey Felix would like to see helmets with ear flaps required for the adult base coaches. “I think we’re probably not going far enough on this,” he said.

Stephenson noted that helmets would need to be purchased for each coach at both the varsity and junior varsity levels and for the freshman or novice programs if a school has a baseball or softball team at that level. “It’s not as cheap as they say,” Stephenson said.

The City Conference includes 17 public schools, two private schools with both male and female students, St. Augustine, and Our Lady of Peace. Stephenson noted that some City Conference programs do not have the financial resources the private schools or some of the conference’s public schools are able to use. “Not really a huge problem for us,” Stephenson said.

The requirement will take effect for the 2015 baseball and softball seasons, and the timeframe between the Jan. 21 passage and the March 3 start of the baseball and softball seasons (practice may begin Feb. 21, and a school can play its first game or scrimmage later than March 3) minimizes fundraising ability for the coach of a program which does not have the financial reserves to purchase the necessary helmets. “He’ll have no money, no budget over there,” Stephenson said.