DeSantis signs legislation to protect youth sports, allow prayer before games

TAMPA, Fla. (FLV) – Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation to protect youth sports in Florida on Wednesday, which will also allow high school teams to pray before games.

The law, HB 225, allows private school, virtual school, and home school students to participate in sports and other extracurricular activities at other public or private schools, regardless of zip code.

“We think it’s important that they’re able to do that, and this is going to expand that ability here in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said.

The legislation allows teams to provide brief opening remarks, including prayers, before high school athletic contests.  

“You have a right to free expression of religion. If government is denying your right to say a prayer before the game, they are infringing your speech, you’re not violating anything, but by doing that, and so for them to do it is discriminatory,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis mentioned the story of a Washington high school coach that was suspended for praying on the field.

“He had to go all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court to be able to get his job back and to say that you didn’t do anything wrong,” DeSantis said.

“We’re going to make sure we’re protecting people and we’re making sure that they have the ability to speak and to pray, you know, as they see fit as individuals,” DeSantis said.

The legislation imposes state control over the Florida High School Athletic Association to ensure women’s sports are protected.

It also reorganizes the association’s Board of Directors to 13 members, instead of the current 16 members. Four members will be elected by school representative members while eight members will be appointed by the governor, and the final member will be the commissioner of education or his designee.

DeSantis said part of the reason they need to have more oversight stems back to the passage of the Fairness and Women’s Sport Act from 2021.

The act specifies that an athletic team or sport that is designated for females, women, or girls may not be open to students of the male sex, based on the student’s biological sex listed on the student’s official birth certificate at the time of birth.

“It took them like 18 months to be able to implement that, through the athletic association, and I’m just thinking to myself, you know, that should have taken a couple of weeks to be able to do,” DeSantis said.