By Mike Miazga
Correspondent
The Illinois Department of Public Health, the Illinois State Board of Education and the Illinois High School Association last week released revised COVID-19 reopening guidelines that will greatly alter the youth sports landscape into 2021.
After Governor JB Pritzker released revised youth sports safety guidelines in conjunction with IDPH/ISBE slated to take effect Aug. 15, the IHSA released its revised 2020-2021 athletic calendar that contained numerous bombshells, including the shifting of high school football, girls volleyball and boys soccer to the 2021 spring season with those sports now officially starting practice in mid-February.
The IHSA noted its plan has been sent to the Illinois Department of Public Health for final approval.
“This plan, like nearly every aspect of our current lives, remains fluid,” IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson said in a press release. “Changes may come, and if they do, we will be agile while putting safety and students first. It was important that we provide a framework today for our student-athletes, coaches, administrators and officials to begin preparing for the 2020-2021 school year.”
The IHSA board proposed scheduling changes that include playing all sports over the course of truncated fall, winter, spring and summer seasons. As a result, several team sports will shift to a new season, including the aforementioned football, boys soccer and girls volleyball heading to the spring with practice beginning in February. Those sports are currently classified as either higher risk (football) or medium risk (soccer and volleyball) under the IDPH/ISBE revised guidelines, which means football, as of now, could only train and conduct no-contact practices, while volleyball and soccer could only conduct intra-team scrimmages with parental consent for minors and no competitive play allowed in current form.
Boys and girls golf, girls tennis and cross country, and girls swimming and diving, however, will remain as fall high school sports and can proceed to start on Aug. 10 as scheduled. Per Governor Pritzker’s announcement (of the IDPH/ISBE revised guidelines), fall sports will begin with competition limited to conference opponents and other schools in the same general geographical area (for Elmhurst-based schools that means only competitions against teams from DuPage and Kane counties and any conference contests against opponents from outside DuPage and Kane).
The fall IHSA season will run Aug. 10 to Oct. 24. The winter season goes Nov. 16 to Feb. 13, while the spring season runs Feb. 15 to May 1 and the new summer season runs May 3 to June 26.
“The board believes this plan offers the most realistic chance for student-athletes to participate in interscholastic sports while balancing the challenges of a new academic setting and IDPH guidelines,” IHSA Board President Tim McConnell (principal at Erie High School) said. “We are an education-based athletic association, and school has to come first. By delaying the majority of the team sports in the fall, it will allow our schools and students the chance to acclimate to what will be, for many, a totally new educational experience. We will do our best to try to give every student-athlete the opportunity for a season his school year.”
The IHSA said state series tournament decisions will be made on a sport-by-sport basis as each season progresses, but providing postseason opportunities remains a priority for the IHSA board. This, the IHSA added, could potentially include culminating state series tournaments after regional or sectional rounds or seeking other non-traditional means to conduct events.
The board also extended the current Phase 4 Return to Play guidelines, which will allow sports slated to be played during the winter, spring and summer seasons to have an additional 20 days of contact for teams between Sept. 7 and Oct. 31, following IDPH Phase 4 guidelines.
Additionally, the IHSA board verified that IHSA bylaws do not prevent schools that are conducting remote learning from participating in IHSA sports and activities. Participation will remain a local school and district decision, regardless of the learning plan a high school is using, the IHSA added.
The IDPH/ISBE guidelines break down sports into three categories: higher risk, medium risk and lower risk.
Higher risk sports include boxing, competitive cheer and dance, football, hockey, lacrosse, martial arts, rugby, ultimate Frisbee and wrestling.
Medium risk sports include basketball, fencing, flag football or 7-on-7 football, paintball, racquetball, soccer, volleyball, water polo and wheelchair basketball.
Lower risk sports include archery, badminton, baseball, bass fishing, bowling, climbing, crew, cross country, cycling, disc golf, golf, gymnastics, horseback riding, ice skating, ropes courses, sailing, canoeing, kayaking, sideline spirit, skateboarding, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field and weight lifting. Many of the lower risk sports have additional safety measures attached to them.
Higher risk sports, based on the new guidelines, can play at Level 1 currently, which means no-contact practices and trainings only. Medium-risk sports can play at levels 1 and 2. Level 2 involves intra-team scrimmages with parental consent for minors and no competitive play. Low-risk sports can play at levels 1, 2 and 3. At Level 3, intra-conference or intra-EMS (COVID-19) region or intra-league play/meets only are allowed. State or league championship games/meets are allowed for low-risk sports only.
At Level 4, which no Illinois sports are classified at as of now, tournaments, out-of-conference play and out-of-state play are allowed, and championship games are allowed.
As an example of the low-risk sports and their attached mitigations, baseball and softball can play at a low-risk level if players are at least six feet apart in the dugout areas or players are seated six feet apart in the bleachers behind the dugout, otherwise those sports are considered medium risk and would be demoted to playing only intra-team scrimmages with parental consent.
In terms of how these new state guidelines affect youth sports such as club/travel sports, the IDPH/ISBE guidance pertains to all youth and adult recreational sports, including, but not limited to, school-based sports (IHSA and Illinois Elementary School Association), travel clubs, private leagues and clubs, recreational leagues and centers, and park district sports programs. The guidelines do not pertain to professional sports leagues or college division-level sports, and also do not apply to adult sport activities subject to existing DCECO guidance, specifically golf and tennis.
Of particular note is the Level 3 allowance of playing intra-conference or intra-EMS region or intra-league play/meets only. EMS refers to the 11 regions the IDPH uses for the Restore Illinois boundaries. As noted above, Elmhurst falls into the EMS region of DuPage and Kane counties, meaning youth travel teams, starting Aug. 15, can only play teams from these two counties. Tournament play also is not allowed as of Aug. 15 at Level 3. Tournament play can resume at Level 4 status. As an example, one Elmhurst travel organization saw a tournament scheduled to run through the Aug. 15 weekend suddenly compressed into a two-day event Aug. 13-14 in order to finish prior to the Aug. 15 new-rules implementation date.
