Conference Affliation

The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association

TSSAA

The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association is a voluntary, nonprofit, self-supported organization, conceived by school people (teachers, principals, superintendents) and administered by individuals carefully chosen to conduct the program.

TSSAA was organized in 1925. When the first state office was set up in 1946, the average daily attendance in all junior and senior high schools in Tennessee was only 85,000. Today's participation reaches almost 100,000.

The TSSAA is a leader in athletics in the United States. Tennessee was one of the first states to offer interscholastic athletics for girls. Tennessee high school girls' basketball goes back to the early 1920's.

The TSSAA was one of the first states to recognize and accept black athletes, the black high school program, and black officials. The TSSAA was one of a very few associations that integrated its program early and was not forced to do so under federal court order, as many states were.

The TSSAA program really began growing by leaps when classification of football was started back in 1969. Three classes were developed and each class advanced four teams into the play-off series. Teams that got to the play-offs did so by a point system. In 1969 the play-off attendance was 23,146.

Today, 160 teams advance to a five classification play-off series -- 32 in each class. Last year the football play-off attendance reached 290,000.

By 1973 there was classification of basketball into two classes. Three classes of basketball came into being in 1976. Credit for initiating the state basketball tournament series goes to the late Blinkey Horn, sports editor of the Nashville Tennessean. The first boys' basketball tournament was held in 1921, and the first girls' cage tourney followed the next year. There was no boys' tournament from 1943 to 1946 because of the war. There was no girls' state from 1929 to 1957 for "financial reasons" and "the various types of rules" played at that time. The 1947 boys' tournament drew 6,132, and it grew to a record crowd of 44,582 in 1968. The girls' state has grown each year from 9,725 in 1958 to 25,874 in 1987. There are approximately 1,300 basketball games played each week during the cage season in Tennessee junior and senior high schools.

TSSAA sponsors football, girls' and boys' basketball, girls' and boys' track, girls' and boys' tennis, wrestling, girls' volleyball, girls' and boys cross country, baseball, girls' softball, girls' and boys' soccer, and girls' and boys' golf.

TSSAA has 347 high schools in its membership. There are 34 junior high schools in TSSAA but there are 300 junior division teams. A junior division team can come from either a junior high school or a be a freshman team from a senior high school.

It was not until 1946 that the Association employed a full-time executive secretary and established a state office in Tennessee. The office moved to the Nashville area in 1970.

PURPOSE

The purpose of the Association is to stimulate and regulate the athletic relations of the secondary schools in Tennessee. Recognizing that the primary objective of all secondary schools is to educate youth, the TSSAA aims to coordinate the athletic and scholastic programs.

The athletic field and gymnasium are classrooms in which teaching is foremost in the development of character, integrity, sportsmanship, and team work. Although the athletic program is associated primarily with physical education and the scholastic program with mental education, one complements the other.

SCHOOLS ESTABLISH RULES

The TSSAA handbook outlines the script and purpose of the Association. It contains the standards of eligibility to be met by high school students attaining the privilege of participating in interschool contests, and these rules control the participating schools.

Since the association was organized, administrators from all over Tennessee have served on its Board of Control, Legislative Council and committees, and have helped write and establish the present standards. By adoption of the rules and bylaws through membership, the schools discipline their own interscholastic program. All standards, provisions and amendments to the rules, constitution and bylaws under which the association operates were voted by the representatives elected by member schools and provide the authority under which the association functions.

Legislative authority is vested in the Legislative Council of nine administrators. The nine council members are elected -- three from each Grand Division of the state -- for three-year terms. Proposed rule changes are discussed at regional meetings in the fall, and the council ascertains the sentiment of the membership toward such changes. The annual meetings of the council are held in December and March with the purpose of accepting or rejecting proposed rule changes.

Any junior or senior high public, parochial or private school accredited by the Tennessee State Department of Education, State Department of Education approved agencies and/or The Southern Association of Secondary Schools and Colleges may become a member by subscribing to TSSAA standards and paying the membership dues.

EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY

The Board of Control is the executive authority of TSSAA. It is the body which enforces TSSAA regulations, conducts state meetings, authorizes the expenditures of TSSAA and registers officials. As with the council, the board is composed of nine administrators - three from each Grand Division of the state. The board members are elected for three-year terms by the TSSAA members they represent

ADMINISTRATION

The Board of Control employs an executive officer and sufficient administrative and clinical help to execute the policies established by the schools and the board. At present there are five staff and seven support employees. The association owns its own building at 3333 Lebanon Road, Hermitage, Tennessee.

TSSAA HAS A POSITIVE ATTITUDE

The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association belongs to the member schools. They organized it, and they will sustain it. Member schools are proud of their association and they have a right to be proud. It serves them well in a very worthy purpose.

The association protects the schools, the students, the communities, the teachers, the administrators, and the officials. It has never allied itself in opposition to any of these and it has been positive and strong in support of all of them. The TSSAA has no ideas, ideals, standards or policies that are foreign to good school work. It is of the schools, by the schools and for the schools at all times.

Protection always comes at a price. It is never free. It costs something. This means support of the organization that makes protection possible and available.