Teddy Bridgewater suspension highlights universal funding problem in high school sports

High school coaches across the country are doing exactly what Teddy Bridgewater was suspended for, and it has absolutely nothing to do with impermissible benefits.

American football funding (Generated by AI)

The news that Miami Northwestern High School suspended NFL veteran quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, who won a state championship last season as the school’s head coach, for providing “impermissible benefits” to his players was a lot of things: insane, asinine, laughable, unbelievable, and also revealing.

What happened?

On July 7, Bridgewater posted on Facebook about the out-of-pocket expenses he had last season as the head coach of his alma mater. He paid approximately $700 per week for Uber rides for players, spent $14,000 on training camp, $9,500 on apparel, $300 per week on field paint, and $2,200 on pre-game meals.

Let’s remember this is being classified as “impermissible benefits.” But these are benefits that Bridgewater himself — not the school, not the state association — reported publicly on social media. It would seem it was not exactly an attempt to cover up something shady.

According to Yahoo! Sports, Bridgewater made $64.8 million during his NFL career. Celebrity Net Work says he has a net worth of approximately $24 million. The nearly $100,000 he spent last season covering expenses for his team is about 0.4% of his overall net worth.

It’s a substantial amount of money compared to what most high school football coaches can afford to invest in their programs, which is a significant reason why it garnered headlines. However, what doesn’t get headlines is the number of coaches who are doing exactly what Bridgewater did: paying for meals, rides, equipment, camp fees, recruiting trips, and many other expenses for their players.

This is not the exception; it’s the norm. It happens because programs are underfunded and underresourced, and the people who are signing up as high school coaches are in it to help kids.

In 2017, Coach & AD Magazine released data showing 87.1% of high school coaches in the United States say their program doesn’t receive enough funding. In 2021, the Aspen Institute surveyed over 10,000 coaches and found 82% said their programs did not receive enough funding to cover all team expenses in the prior season.