On Wednesday afternoon, January 27th, the long halt on high school sports in Illinois ended as the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) announced the official start dates for each of the sports that has not competed in the 2020-2021 school year. A host of winter sports including basketball and Boys' Swimming begin immediately, and the 'tweener' spring season with football, boys' soccer, and Girls' Volleyball begins in March. Illinois Track & Field now has a start date of April 5th, with seven practice dates required before meets can begin. The season will run until June 19, and there is still a decision to be made about whether the season will end with a state championship.
Let's discuss some of the major takeaways from this announcement.
All things considered, this is fantastic news for track and field in Illinois
Track, along with the rest of the spring sports, received the shortest end of the 2019-2020 stick since the pandemic hit right in the middle of March. The previous draft of the Illinois sports calendar, drafted in July, pegged track to begin on April 26th and end late in June. This new schedule, although still with a mid-June end, represents a huge improvement in the length of the season. In November, when COVID-19 infection numbers rose and prompted the shut-down of IHSA sports, even the tentative April 26th start date was in peril of representing an over-optimistic projection. Now that the IHSA has a more foundational go-ahead from Governor Pritzker and the IDPH, it appears as though the April 5th start date is the surest bet for the season's beginning since the pandemic began.
There are still obstacles to be cleared
The decisions to hold sports practices and competitions for the track now lies in the hands of school districts and school boards. Phase 4 regions can hold all sports events including the highest-risk sports like football and basketball, but some regions do lag behind in the mitigation tiers-specifically Will, Kankakee, Kane, DuPage, McHenry, Lake, Cook, Bond, Madison, St. Clair, Clinton, Washington, Monroe, and Randolph Counties, as well as the city of Chicago. These counties hold a great majority of the state's population so there will need to be an improvement in the phases of these areas to prevent IDPH's phase-based restrictions on sports. In the fall, several schools elected not to compete in the regional and sectional meets and there may be more school districts that restrict their own involvement.
A careful look at the schedule reveals that there is overlap between the spring seasons and the preceding seasons, including football. Multi-sport athletes will bear the brunt of the burden, especially in these overlapping weeks of football and track (from early to late April). Don't forget about multi-sport coaches, as well. Schools, coaches, and athletes will have some delicate balances to find. There may even be some 3-sport athletes who will be in three different seasons over the course of just four months.
State series? Just one of many questions yet to be answered
The IDPH has drawn a line in the dirt at preventing state series for high-risk sports -- so, Basketball, Football, and Wrestling, as well as other sports, will not have a state series with regionals, sectionals, and state. This is still in the air for track-Craig Anderson was quoted as saying there is a "long shot" but still a chance for the track state series.
The success of the Shazam Championship meet during the cross country season was evidence that the athletics sports will find a way to have championship-level competition, so the timing of such a meet will depend greatly on whether the state series question is answered. Look to Badminton's season as a possible indicator of whether there will be a state series-they are also considered to be TBD for a state series and end their season on April 3rd.
Stay flexible
Like we have all learned during the pandemic, there are no promises. Coaches and athletes should be advised to treat the April 5th date as a best-case scenario, but remain hopeful and prepare for the beginning of the season as if that were the date. There is hopeful writing on the wall with the administration of the vaccine as well as improving COVID-19 numbers.
There is some poetic justice to the season beginning right at the traditional start of outdoor, roughly when the season ended last year. Although we no longer have last year's senior class in high school, the rest of the grades are receiving a chance to complete the track season that never was. Here's to good news, finally, for our sport.