Florida just passed a law that lets coaches pay for their players’ food and rides to and from games
Now that the Teddy Bridgewater Act is law, trainers can finally get paid what they’re worth.
Good news: Florida coaches now have a lot more tools to use.
On Friday at Ribault High School in Jacksonville, Governor Ron DeSantis made it official by signing two bills that fix issues that really should have been dealt with a long time ago.
As a start, folks should know that Florida has been losing good coaches to other places because the pay wasn’t good enough. This issue is directly dealt with by SB 538, which lets booster club money go toward teacher salaries on top of what the district already pays. When schools negotiate pay, they can now treat sports coaches like administrative staff. This gives them more freedom to keep the right people on staff. This law makes sure that all students, including those in charter schools, private schools, and homeschools, can participate in sports and other events outside of school.
The second bill has a real historical background. In 2024, Teddy Bridgewater returned to his hometown to coach at Miami Northwestern. Some of his players had been through a lot and couldn’t always afford food or a ride to practice, so Bridgewater paid for it himself.
He broke the rules, so the FHSAA suspended him. It was precisely what DeSantis said it was. “He paid for it with his own money.” Although he was helping these people, he was banned because of how the rules were written.
That will never happen again thanks to SB 178, the Teddy Bridgewater Act. Once a year, coaches can spend up to $15,000 of their money on things like food, transportation, and physical therapy for their players, as long as the parents agree. It’s only one teacher per team, and the FHSAA needs to know about it. The door is now open, though.
Democratic Sen. Shevrin Jones, who pushed for the bill, didn’t hold back when she talked about what it means. “Coaches are like lifelines for young athletes; they help them learn and grow.” They should never get in trouble for putting student players’ safety first and protecting them.
The issue never was what Bridgewater did for those kids. That was how it worked. They now show that.
