Bridgewater joins Jones in Miami Gardens for law ceremony
Bridgewater and Jones marked a new Florida law in Miami Gardens that lets high school coaches use personal funds, up to $15,000 a team, for players' food, rides and recovery help.
Teddy Bridgewater and state Sen. Shevrin Jones marked the Teddy Bridgewater Act in Miami Gardens by highlighting a change that now lets Florida high school coaches use personal funds to help athletes with food, transportation and recovery services. The law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on May 23, went into effect July 1 and sets a $15,000 annual cap per athletic team, with coaches required to report the spending to the Florida High School Athletic Association.
Filed as CS/CS/SB 178, Athletics in Public K-12 Schools, the measure directs the FHSAA to adopt bylaws authorizing head coaches to support a student-athlete’s welfare with their own money. The law presumes that qualifying spending is not an impermissible benefit, but it also requires the aid to be given in good faith, bars its use for recruiting and requires written parental consent. The FHSAA finalized the rules implementing the act in June, putting the new standards in place before the law took effect.
Bridgewater’s name on the bill connects the policy to his own path through Miami-Dade football. He led Miami Northwestern Senior High School to the Florida Class 3A state championship in December 2024 before a later suspension after he acknowledged paying for players’ meals, Uber rides and other benefits during the 2025-26 school year. That episode helped push the Legislature toward a narrow legal framework for support that had previously been prohibited.
Jones has framed the issue around the role coaches play in students’ lives, especially when athletes need more than practice plans and game schedules. The new law gives coaches a legal way to cover basic needs that can shape attendance, health and performance, while keeping the spending tied to reporting and oversight.
For Miami-Dade County, where high school football carries outsized weight, the practical test now shifts to the field and the locker room. Schools and coaches will have to track every dollar, stay inside the yearly cap and follow the parental consent and reporting rules as the first season under the act gets underway.
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