His Actions Have Inspired Florida Senate to Pass the “Teddy Bridgewater Act”
He was a former football player himself and later became a high school football coach. However, trying to do good deeds for the less fortunate landed him in hot water. Prior to becoming a high school coach, he had started a successful NFL career with the Minnesota Vikings in 2014. But was derailed with a serious leg injury. After playing with a couple other teams he moved onto high school. That’s where his actions have inspired the Florida senate to pass the “Teddy Bridgewater Act.” Because somehow his high school philanthropy caused a problem.
Bridgewater retired from the NFL in 2023 and became the head coach of his former alma mater Miami Northwestern. It was there that he realized that some of his players needed off-field help. As we detailed previously, he helped the players with things like daily Uber rides, feeding them and getting them to training camp. Bridgewater was providing all of those things out of his own pocket. And apparently, other people didn’t like that he was doing it. Therefore, he was suspended from his position as head coach of the football team.
Specifically, the Florida High School Athletic Association felt that Bridgewater was wrong to pay for those things, assisting the players in that way. But why would anyone begrudge students from receiving needed help? Who knows, but that’s what happened and why he was suspended from coaching. Yet Bridgewater was of the opinion, “it’s impossible to suspend someone who doesn’t work for you and he’s not going anywhere.”
His Actions Have Inspired Florida Senate to Pass the “Teddy Bridgewater Act”
So that’s how we got to the Florida senate passing the “Teddy Bridgewater Act” for high school coaches. It’s an effort to allow high school coaches to use their own money to help their players. As reported by Andy Villamarzo of Rivals.com, the Florida Senate has passed a “Teddy Bridgewater Act” that would allow coaches to use up to $15,000 of their own money to support student-athletes with food, transportation, and recovery services.
The act has passed and now would need to go through the final steps of going to the House of Representatives before being signed off on by Governor Ron DeSantis before it’s fully approved to go into law. So, it is not a done deal yet, but it is a step in the right direction. However, some feel that the act will open a can of worms. Wondering who will track expenditures, or will it allow the coach to raise more money than the allowable $15,000?
There will always be naysayers to anything that is helpful to others. But we say kudos to Teddy Bridgewater for getting this particular ball rolling!
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