It's official. There is going to be a Fall 2020 cross
country season in Illinois.
The IHSA weekly update send to school administrators today,
July 29th gave the most definitive outline of IHSA sports seasons to
date. In this Return to Activities 1.0 document, it was determined that Boys
and Girls Cross Country can be competed "in groups of 50 or less where multiple
groups are distanced a minimum of 30 ft apart. Competitions should be within an
Illinois COVID Region or within a conference." The season begins August 10th
and will end October 24, which is two weeks before the usual end date
(typically the weekend of regionals.)
In short, today was a topsy-turvy day getting all the
information out. The plan was for IHSA to release the plan at 2:00 pm, prior to
Gov. Pritzker's usual afternoon press conference. However, Pritzker moved his
press conference earlier in the day and gave sports a cursory mention without
many details. This left many coaches and administrators confused and scrambling
for info. A delay in the IHSA's press release made the 2:00pm to 3:00pm hour a
difficult one of waiting, but all is well that ends well since we now have our
news.
Since there is a season there are no more what-ifs, only
'when and 'hows'. So now, we begin our discussion of how to hold the season.
In my mind, there are three major questions to ask based on the short statement
given on boys and girls cross country in the document. They are as follows.
1. How should we design meet schedules to allow for
regional and conference play?
2. How should we design meets to keep groups of
less than 50, and keep them distanced?
3. What does the state series look like?
These are in order from easiest to hardest to answer. Since
there is specific guidance to hold competitions between schools in the same
region or conference, expect to see more schools design new meets like that.
The traditional schedule of large invites will likely be scrapped since these
are large meets that draw schools from multiple regions. The silver lining is
that the season is now a blank slate for teams in similar areas to start
planning some new competitions. We may begin to see more dual, tri and quad
meets as well since the lesser number of runners should assist in the social
distancing measures.
Designing meets so that there is never a group of more than
50 is a little trickier. This is already a step forward, since previously it
was unclear that the state would allow multiple gatherings of 50 in the same
area (there are already some park districts that are disallowing this
arrangement). There are two results of this: first, a team camp cannot have
more than 50 at it. This is trickier for the larger schools that always carry
more than 50 athletes on the team. Schools will have to creatively handle this
limitation. Secondly, the races themselves will likely not be able to have more
than 50 run at a time. There are some good workarounds to this: 7 teams of 7
runners can run at a time, so if there are more than 7 teams at a meet, then
multiple waves or flights can be used. There is also a proposition that
multiple starting lines can be used to separate the starting gatherings, but
this will be a trickier logistical move and is not as likely. The creativeness
of meet organizers and coaches will be needed for this point the most. We may
also not have spectators, so live streaming is possible but this is another
question that still must be answered.
The last point, and probably the hardest, for now, is whether
we can have a state series. Holding a true state championship would violate the
rule of only having teams within the same region compete. However, Anderson did
not rule out the possibility of a state series in his press conference today
(i.e. Michael O'Brien on Twitter). Since sectional and state meets are so large,
this will be tough to execute, however. We will continue to look for answers to
this question as the season progresses. Since the sport is so regionalized this
year, finding a 'true' state champion may be hard.
At this time, we wait to see how the cross country seasons
in the Midwestern USA will be affected as well. Indiana, Missouri, and Wisconsin
will be having their seasons, and Ohio is currently awaiting a decision from
OHSAA on whether cross country is considered high-risk or not. Iowa has
switched some of its other sports seasons but cross country is still happening
as well.
Now that it is time to discuss what to do rather than have
what-ifs, this is the time for coaches and schools to have discussions. With
questionnaires coming out soon, coaches can look forward to our emails as an
opportunity to voice their ideas and hopes for the season.
As always follow our twitter (@MileSplitIL) and check back
on our website for updates on this season.
