State Sen. Donnie Chesteen (R-Geneva) wants to make sure that the Alabama High School Athletic Association (ASHAA) is listening to the concerns of parents, coaches, and school administrators.

The lawmaker introduced SB73 early in the session that would effectively overhaul the structure of the organization.

The bill’s synopsis says the legislation “would prohibit public K-12 schools from being a member of an athletic association whose governing body is comprised of certain members and that enforces rules relating to student-athlete eligibility which were not adopted in accordance with the Alabama Administrative Procedure Act. This bill would also authorize the Legislative Council to allow any entity to voluntarily adopt rules pursuant to the Alabama Administrative Procedure Act.”

AHSAA has received renewed attention after the association treated CHOOSE Act funds as “financial aid,” meaning a transfer student using those dollars would trigger the association’s longstanding policy that transfer athletes receiving financial assistance must sit out one year before competing.

During her State of the State address, Governor Kay Ivey urged lawmakers to pass legislation in 2026 to stop the Alabama High School Athletic Association from forcing CHOOSE Act transfer student-athletes to sit out a year.

Chesteen recently said he was “tapping the breaks” on moving his bill forward in order to have a conversation with people involved.

During a Friday appearance on WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program,” the senator admitted that he filed the bill to get the AHSAA board’s attention.

“So over the last year or so…I personally have reached out to the executive director and wanted to have a conversation with him,” Chesteen explained. “I thought that, you know, being a former high school coach and being able to talk the language that he talks, that I could help him with my colleagues in the Senate, as far as maybe looking at some of the issues that that the high school athletics association was going to be dealing with in the next coming years. And obviously there was no conversation.”

Chesteen said just filing the bill got the association to finally reach out to him and other lawmakers.

“And so we dropped the bill in hopes of having a conversation,” he said, man did we after I dropped the bill last Tuesday’s first day of session. I spent the entire last Friday on the phone with coaches, with superintendents, with private school members.”

Chesteen explained why an change in the structure of the organization might be needed.

“There are a lot of concerns with the makeup of the central border controls,” he said. “Coaches, to some extent, feel like their voice is not being heard. Private schools as well. So we we dropped the bill. We’ve done a lot of listening since then, and we did…we all know the legislature can’t and shouldn’t be running the or involved in the in the day to day operations, or sitting on a board of central controls with those whose that’s their field, their educators, their coaches, superintendents. So let them do their job.”

Another issue that is bound to come up in these conversation is the AHSAA deciding to split up private and public schools for championship competition.

“I’m confident that AHSAA executive director Heath Harmon and the governing board will be remembered for extinguishing the flame of competitiveness and abandoning any effort at simple fairness and good sportsmanship under their watch,” Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth posted on X about the move on Friday.

Even though Chesteen has put a pause on moving forward with his bill, he said that doesn’t mean it won’t eventually come back.

“This bill is not dead by any stretch of the imagination,” he argued. “You know, we will keep it alive and and see if after today’s reclassification, and hopefully, the conversations that we can have between some of the central board members and the executive director will be a product that will lead to a productive outcome for our students in the state of Alabama. That’s the whole intent.”

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee