The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked unprecedented havoc on high school sports across the nation.
In Illinois, it started with the cancellation of the boys basketball state championships a day before the Class 1A and 2A semifinals. Soon after, all of the spring sports state tournaments suffered the same fate.
We sat down with Craig Anderson, executive director of the Illinois High School Association, to talk about how tough and emotional the past two months have been and what the IHSA plans to do moving forward in anticipation of a fall season.
What kind of a toll has this taken on you personally, being the leader of the IHSA?
It has been difficult, to say the least. I personally do take it to heart making the decision to basically eliminate a lot of dreams and aspirations for what the spring could have looked like for a lot of our students. My challenge personally is just to daily go about work when we should be having activities. To know that it’s not going on anywhere just seems tragic.
The difficult thing for me is to think about and plan for a future not knowing what it will look like. I’m concerned about our association and the financial aspect of the association. Fortunately, we have a great board and a great staff, and we’re all kind of suffering through this together.
What was it like the day you had to cancel the state basketball tournament?
We had the 1A and 2A basketball teams in Peoria, and I woke up that day and went straight to the Civic Center. We initially made the tough choice at the time to go through with the championships, but with limited spectators.
As the day went on that Thursday, the teams were practicing, and we were communicating with local health departments. Then we heard what was happening nationally with the Big Ten Tournament. Everything happened so fast. It literally turned upside down that evening, having to go into a coaches and administrators meeting to let them know the tournament was canceled.
Almost right away, you had to consider the dire circumstances facing spring sports.
We tried to stay optimistic for everyone, in particular our senior athletes. But I could see different state associations, one after another, reporting the governor extended stay-at-home orders and schools were done with physical attendance for the year.
You’re just kind of waiting for when that was going to happen in our state, and it did. Soon after, we had the board meeting to cancel it. Even when we canceled the championships, tentatively we did leave the window open for some point in the summer to possibly allow schools to organize themselves some kind of regular-season spring stuff.
How many plans for this fall have been drawn up over the past couple of months?
We have a number of things just thrown on paper, and we continue to discuss them. At this point, we’re really not taking anything off the table of possibility, whether it be a modified season, a modified state series, a flip-flop of seasons that would create all kinds of chaos.
The key for me is when we’re able to allow students to get back in connection with one another in an activity setting. As soon as it’s possible and safe for our students to do so, we want to get it underway.
Everybody, of course, is concerned about football. Where does football stand in the IHSA’s thought process?
I’m hopeful we could resume at some point in August. I’m hopeful of a fall season with a state championship series. Honestly, I don’t know how realistic or unrealistic that is. But where I sit in the middle of May, my hope is still for the anticipation of a fall football state series. I know there could be parts of that with limited attendance and maybe with no spectator attendance. But I’m still hopeful we can have a championship in November, recognizing that is just one possibility.
How important is football in the grand scheme of things?
A: It’s critical for us related to the financial stability of the association. That ticket revenue we get from a state championship series from Round 1 to our championships is critical for us. That’s why, as an association, it’s one that we have highlighted. But volleyball, golf, tennis and all the things we would start the school year with, we’re looking at all of them, and we want all students to have an opportunity to participate.
Do you see football as the most problematic sport to get back on track?
It is, definitely in the fall, in regard to the passing of a virus and the proximity of players to one another, even in a practice setting. If it’s not under control or we don’t have a vaccine, that’s what gets really concerning about football and the nature of football.
One rumor has the football and baseball seasons being flipped. Where is that on the table of potential plans?
At this point, I’m not saying that, “No, we wouldn’t consider that.” I think we’d have to get the support of the membership on board with that idea. But the idea of flipping seasons is really complicated. Right now, everything remains on the list.
Let’s say that football does return this fall. What will the IHSA do to ensure the safety of players and whatever fans are allowed to attend?
I think maybe some of the professional leagues are talking about the players being temperature-checked or even having a full-being check for the virus before competing. While that seems potentially fathomable for professional leagues, the numbers for us to conduct that on a broad scale for all of our high schools just isn’t possible.
We really haven’t talked about if we would have the potential to have spectators and do that kind of testing, even if it’s a simple temperature check. Early on, I think it would lean on the shoulders of our membership to have that responsibility.
I don’t know if there will be something to connect to your smartphone to somehow pass it across somebody’s forehead. Somebody is going to make a lot of money when they come up with that app.
How much of the 2020-21 sports year could the IHSA financially afford to lose?
Even back in April, when we knew our spring championships were going to be eliminated, I initiated some discussion with the board on how we could lean on our membership. We’ve been fortunate for the last 12-15 years to not have to charge membership dues to any of our schools. They selected the sports and activities they chose to participate in without a membership or participation fee. The potential exists that our board could reinstitute something like that to help us get through the difficult time we’re facing.
Especially if we go into the fall and are unable to conduct fall championships, to me that’s where it gets concerning without support from some direction. Dr. (Marty) Hickman (the IHSA’s former executive director) did a great job of creating a nest egg. It’s in investments that now, of course, aren’t doing well, but there is the potential we could liquidate some of that to help us survive and get our feet back on the ground.
I don’t know of a specific timeline. I just know that with another season with no state series championships or limited spectators, we’re going to have to lean on our membership in some regard.
Could you see doing one sport and not another this fall?
At this point, I could. In the spring, as we got into this, I kind of went on the record saying I wouldn’t see us conducting one championship without all championships. But at this point, with the circumstances that we’re in and as I reference the benefit of students getting back and participating in something, anything is on the table. Our board would likely entertain the possibility of us conducting certain sports and activities, while others just can’t be because of the nature of the sport.
I think our board needs to consider where it makes sense. Golf as an example, since we have already instituted the opportunity for golf to go on. I think that will advance. You can distance yourself generally on a golf course. Likewise, with tennis. In those sports with less physical contact, it makes sense to allow for some while not others. We need to get back to allowing kids to participate where it’s safe and feasible.
What would happen if schools didn’t physically open this fall, but classes were conducted through e-learning?
It would be extremely difficult for me and our board, which is represented by principals, to support the idea that we could conduct activities without having schools in physical attendance. I just don’t see those things going together. Our board will weigh in on this as we move closer to the start of the school year if there is some discretion on this. But it seems to me to be a little unreasonable to not have schools physically in attendance and think activities could be played out.
Will the NCAA’s decisions figure into the IHSA’s plan?
We are watching them and actually reviewing a lot of the information they are sending out. They have some great experts, especially related to the resocialization once we can get back. They produced a lot of excellent guidelines.
I do feel like our high school experience is a little bit different. We’re generally more regional in our competition, especially when you compare it to the Division I level. But it is definitely worth keeping an eye on how they are progressing.
In any of the shifting around that might take place, are you concerned about the problem of conflicting with club sports?
I don’t believe that would factor into our decision-making. If we would end up with a high school sports season that would overlap a traditional club sports season, at that point, I guess our athletes would have to make a decision. While we ordinarily wouldn’t want that to happen, I just think that if it’s a way in which we can provide the high school experience, we have to look at that first.
Obviously, in the role I play, I see significant benefits for educational-based athletics as opposed to club-based and would absolutely encourage and hope our students would make the choice to represent their school and community on their high school teams. I think our decision-making will be based on how best to serve our member schools and provide the opportunity for our kids to participate on and represent their school teams and communities.
Would it be an either-or thing, or would you allow them to do both?
In the spring, if we transitioned and pushed our season later into the spring where we knew baseball and softball, as an example, would have some non-school tournament events already scheduled, we were talking to our membership about the possibility of waiving that limit and allowing some overlap.
Depending on the sport, I guess that conversation and decision could be made by our board. We would at least consider it. I worry a little bit about some of the sports and the strain on our athletes to try to do some of the club and high school sport simultaneously. Obviously, we would hope that the coaches would work together in some regard and parents would step in and say, “Listen, it’s all about player safety.”
Do you think high school sports will ever get back to what we’ve considered normal?
If we do, I think it’s going to be a long time. Even with a vaccine, and they’re saying that will get us back to some normalcy, I think there will continue to be concerns about the typical end-of-the-game handshakes. There will a long time before we see our sports from start to finish looking identical to how they have been before we ended up in this pandemic.
That scares me a little bit. We have a long way to go to get completely out of this to a point where we are back to where we were. I am hopeful that we get there and would love it to be sooner than later. But I think it will be a significant time before we are there.