Fed question - metal cleats?
 

Just need to confirm something. Are metal cleats allowed for high school softball??

Thanx

That's up to your state association. NFHS has no rule against players wearing metal.

The confusion is sometimes because they used to be prohibited by NFHS, who removed that a few years ago, but some States kept the prohibition. Your State Rules Interpreter should include that in the list of State adoptions & exceptions.

Official Fed rules do not officially allow for the use of metal cleats to be left up to the state associations. However, I'm not surprised to hear that some states are not allowing them.

Specifically, 3-2-11 allows for the use of metal cleats and metal toe plates and has no mention of state adoption.

While not a "rule" per se, each state that is a member of the National Federation may modify any playing rule as they see fit. The list of "state adoptions" in the rule book is not an all-inclusive list.

As the foreword on page one of the rule book puts it, "Member associations of the NFHS independently make decisions regarding compliance or modification of these playing rules for the student-athletes in their respective states".

IIRC, they also "phased in" implementation, saying that the states could implement the year after this rule passed, or wait an additional year. South Carolina went during the first year, which I think was 2008-2009 meaning that this would be the third school year after adoption and should be everywhere using NFHS rules, except those states who decided they knew better (as described above).