Open Access Kent State (OAKS)

This research paper serves as a follow-up study to an investigation conducted by Turner, Mahony and Pastore (2005) on interscholastic rules violations from 1999. The mainly sought to determine if any significant changes in the types of rules violations committed surfaced and if those sports engaging in illegal activities switched over the five-year period. All 51 state high school athletic associations were surveyed for this study. Twenty-six returned questionnaires (51.0%) were used in the analyses. A number of interesting findings developed. First, similar to the original study, respondents estimated boys’ sports committed 76.4% of all rule violations. Next, from a list of violations (used in Turner et al., 2005), respondents signaled a change in frequency and types of violations between boys and girls’ sports. Finally, although the top five girl’s sports with the most rule violation remained unchanged from the previous study, the gap between the sport with the most violations (basketball) and the sport with the 2nd most violations (soccer) virtually disappeared.