Putnam Middle School Athletics Now Eligible For State Tournaments

The Putnam County School System has joined the TMSAA for all of its middle school sports.

Algood Middle School Athletic Director Ben Herron said there was a big push from coaches to join so that schools can play in state tournaments. Herron said there will be changes to schedules, practices and paperwork, but the biggest change will be for 5th and 6th graders.

“Putnam County we structure a little different, we’re (grades) 5-8,” Herron said. “So that leaves 5th graders and 6th graders, they still have their season that they can only be JV players. They can’t play in a TMSAA sponsored event. They can still participate, they just can’t play in a TMSAA sponsored event.”

Herron said that a benefit to making this change is a better insurance policy available for sports related injuries. He said these changes will require students to remain in good standing with their grades and attendance to be eligible for TMSAA athletics.

“In middle school we push coaches to maybe have a little stricter rules than that,” Herron said. “They can have rules inside the rules just because we want to teach kids at this age that we’re student athletes. So we’re students first, athletes second. So they kind of come up with their own rules but we do have rules to follow within that.”

Herron said that parents might notice some differences in the paperwork for athletics, like sports physicals being dated after April 15. He said there would be other changes for athletic schedules.

“Some restrictions on some games, the number of games played,” Herron said. “Practice times will be tweaked a little bit, but not a bunch of huge changes for us.”

Herron said another factor in joining the TMSAA was that high school athletics are already under TSSAA rules. He said it made sense to become compliant with those rules for uniformity.