LONE TREE - The Colorado High School Activities Association hosted its second of two Legislative Council meetings for the 2025-26 school year on Wednesday at DCSD Legacy Campus. Throughout the meeting, the biggest changes that the council voted to approve were language around recruiting, guidance for disciplinary actions, postseason adjustments and classification placement for winter sports.
Corporate Partner awards were also presented throughout the meeting, and 22 school administrators - along with CHSAA’s longtime legal counsel, Alex Halpern, and Assistant Commissioner Michael Book - were recognized in honor of their retirement.
“We are deeply grateful for the immense impact that all of these leaders have had on our schools and communities," CHSAA Commissioner Michael Krueger said. "Their example of servant leadership and unwavering commitment to educationally based activities has shaped not only programs, but people. Through their leadership, countless students have learned lessons that extend far beyond competition, learning lessons in character, resilience, and teamwork.
“Their legacies will live on in the coaches they mentored, the cultures they strengthened, and the lives they influenced. More than anything, they have shown what it means to lead with integrity, humility, and purpose. We thank them for the lasting impact that they have had and we wish them the very best in their well-earned retirement.”
Among the proposals that passed throughout the voting portion of the meeting, two were around recruiting. Clarification around what “recruiting” is will now be clarified through
ADM 4: Clarifying Recruiting Definition, while
ADM 5: Contact with Non-High School Aged Students will define what appropriate and non-appropriate contact with schools and students looks like, while also clarifying what appropriate contact for non-high school aged students is.
Adjustments will also be made for guidance around coach and spectator behaviors through
ADM 6: Coach Ejection Timeline, which gives a specific timeline for a coach to complete their ejection coursework, and
ADM 7: Spectator Behavior, which will create an opportunity for school administration and/or coaches to clearly communicate expectations and potential consequences for negative behavior prior to contests.
For individual sports, postseason adjustments will be made to:
- Basketball – which will implement an 18-game minimum for qualifications into playoffs and update seeding criteria to resolve a league conflict
- Football – which will utilize a seven-man official crew to work all 11-man semifinal games and set automatic qualifying bids for multi-classification leagues
- Ice Hockey – will increase 4A postseason qualifying teams from 10 to 12
- Spirit – new markings will be made on the dance floor, 4A and 5A coed will move to a combined 4A/5A division and 4A/5A game day cheer will become a 4A and 5A division
- Track and Field – the 1A classification will move from 10 qualifiers to 12 qualifiers in all field events for the 2027 season
- Wrestling – Support 10 dual days and increase match limits
Through the Classification and League Organization Committee report, winter sport classifications were approved, which can be viewed on the
CLOC Dashboard.
Other approved bylaw proposals include:
Proposals approved through committee work include:
- Budget - report was passed with an acknowledgement that the budget will be tighter next year and there will be an increase of $10 per CHSAA card with a $150 max impact per school
- Music - will raise mileage reimbursement rate for adjudicators
- Speech and Debate - will implement an AI policy
In addition to the legislative portion of the meeting, CHSAA and its corporate partners awarded Montrose’s Layla Lambert with the Children’s Hospital Colorado Outstanding Sports Medicine Student and Crowley County’s Derreck Buford and Nederland’s Abigail Hess as SCHEELS All-Star Scholarship Winners.
CHSAA also honored its 22 retiring athletic directors and/or school administrators: Chris Enzminger (Littleton), Chris James (Pueblo South), Craig Denny (Glenwood Springs), Derek Chaney (Douglas County SD), Destiny Lotrich (Pueblo Central), Diane Shuck-Gray (Douglas County), Gwen Hansen-Vigil (Eaglecrest), JC Summers (Golden), Jeff Schuessler (Gilpin County), Kyle Tregoning (Fort Collins), Larry Bull (Cherry Creek SD), Paul Cain (Mesa County SD), Hank Hooper (Mullen), John Thompson (Smoky Hill). Amy Ward (North Park), Chantelle Jordan (Pagosa Springs), Jean Incitti (Cherokee Trail), Maggie Kilmer (Prairie), Russell Bates (Fowler), Scott Cohen (Smoky Hill), Sean O'Donnell (Pagosa Springs) and Tony Kappas (Douglas County).
Finally, in addition to naming
Micheal Jobman as the next Board of Directors President, the Legislative Council voted to approve Greg Hawkins (Palisade, District 1), Karl Buck (Centaurus, District 2), Kevin Bendjy (Denver Public Schools, District 5), Rick Lovato (Alamosa, District 8) to the Board of Directors beginning with the 2026-27 school year. Amanda Jones-Weis (Greeley West, At-Large District 2-4) was approved during yesterday’s board meeting for an at-large position, while District 3 will vote on Shawn Randel (Akron) during the January 2027 meeting.