The Illinois High School Association’s (IHSA) Board of Directors is seeking to extend an olive branch after an initial vote of defiance following Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s reclassification of high school sports – including basketball – from medium-risk to high-risk, effectively delaying the start of the season.
The board has invited Pritzker to send representatives from his office to attend its next meeting and discuss a way forward, according to coverage by the Chicago Tribune.
Elverado-Zeigler-Royalton High School girls varsity basketball coach Scott Slone told the Carbondale Reporter he supports the efforts of the IHSA to try to ensure student-athletes get a chance to play sports this year, though the direction their program will choose has yet to be decided.
“With that, I think it is important to note that we’ve got a lot of athletes that play multiple sports, and so trying to push another sport into next year is going to be difficult,” he said.
That’s not an unusual position for smaller schools to find themselves in, where many of the teams are made up of athletes who play more than one sport.
“It just really kind of creates an issue with that – I guess I’ve got mixed emotions along those lines,” Slone said. “Of course, safety is the most important thing. I think all of us would agree with finding a way where we can do it safely.”
Slone said that he would like to see more discussion about finding ways to have sports safely, rather than just blanket orders pushing the seasons back.
In the meantime, like many schools around the state, Slone’s players are preparing with the expectation they will start their season at the end of November, just to be ready in case they get the chance to play.
“The school’s pretty much kind of left it – you know, we practice in masks anyway – so they’ve kind of left it up to coaches to go ahead and pursue that, knowing that we may not start on the 30th, depending on what happens.”
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