More Actions, Less Words
Covid vaccine is here, but hope appears to be the lone strategy in #ReturnToPlay
(Photo Credit: NPR Illinois)
The Illinois High School Association, and its board of directors, in lieu of making decisions, is instead becoming very good at releasing statements about how they feel.
Its latest came Monday, with an assured tone, but devoid of facts to validate that tone.
Two excerpts from the statement:
The Board felt that it was important for the physical and mental health of our student-athletes
We hope to be able to conduct basketball during the winter season
The Board reiterated on Monday that they plan to do everything in their power to provide a season for every IHSA sport in 2020-21
The Board appreciates the patience and flexibility of the IHSA membership and remain optimistic…that we will return to conducting IHSA sports early in 2021
Keeping with the holiday spirit of gratitude, I’m very grateful the IHSA board feels the physical and mental health of student-athletes is important.
It’s nice to know the IHSA plans to do everything in its power to provide a season for all sports.
I’m sure the IHSA membership is thankful for the board acknowledging their patience and flexibility.
But can we now conclude the therapy session? We’re clear about how the IHSA feels.
What is it going to do about it?
Its mid-December and nothing has changed since October with youth sports in Illinois. There is little or no participation other than one-on-one training sessions in gyms.
The rapidly moving calendar dictates decisions being made but nothing is done. Can-kicking is this season’s lone sport, one the IHSA should consider sanctioning for the 2021-22 school year.
(ESPN is broadcasting the Cornhole League, Axe-Throwing and BASE jumping seemingly every night. There has to be room for Kick-The-Can. How’s that for a revenue-enhancing brainstorm? Sell the television rights! I’ll donate my 10 percent finder’s fee to charity).
The current situation is not all on the IHSA, a frequent target in this newsletter. It is staking out the position as the good guys, the George Bailey (to use a “It’s a Wonderful Life” analogy) punching up at the evil bad guy, banker George F. Potter, played in 2020 by Gov. JB Pritzker.
But Bailey is a fictional character. In real life, happy endings aren’t guaranteed.
And wishfulness is not a strategy for those with existing goals.
School district superintendents remain silent (the exception being the open letter originated downstate earlier this fall. As soon as that letter circulated north of I-80, it got shredded). The coalition of education leaders the IHSA hoped to bring to the bargaining table with Pritzker in November went nowhere. All parties claim kids come first and during a pandemic have used the health and safety shield as cover. But at this point, that shield—tenuous at best—is no longer valid. It’s perfectly safe for kids to be in school and to play sports. Opposition to this now common sense objective fact is like screaming “beware of sharks!” to Michael Phelps before he dives into the pool.
With no other means of communication, we are forced to go off of monthly press releases after every IHSA board meeting. The releases are devoid of real information, instead stating of ‘plans’ rather than making plans.
What the athletes in Illinois need are hard assurances. Not day-by-day, hour-by-hour, granular details. Those can be made later. But a sense that adults are making decisions with compassionate consideration, not passive disingenuousness.
Less dimmed. More unclouded.
Less try. More do.
Lacking data to explain this cycle of procrastination, the IHSA has taken to using the vaccine as a public relations tool.
From IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson:
There have been no cancellations of any sports, or discussions about cancelling any sports, thus far. The Board appreciates the patience and flexibility of the IHSA membership and remain optimistic, especially as vaccines begin to be administered, that we will return to conducting IHSA sports early in 2021
The vaccine roll out, the first doses given out Tuesday in Illinois, is a testament to this country’s innovative power. It’s a remarkable achievement when you consider nine months ago, most Americans were first learning about the ‘novel coronavirus’. Health care officials project 20 million people will have the ability to get vaccinated by the end of December, 50 million by the end of January.
Dr. Fauci said Monday that by April 2021, everyone, regardless of age or health, ‘will be able to walk into a CVS or Walgreen’s and get vaccinated’.
That’s wonderful news.
But is that what the IHSA is waiting for? Is that what its been told by Pritzker and his public health valets? That everyone has to be vaccinated before sports can resume?
In its statement, the IHSA contradicts that inference when stating it is ‘optimistic’ about ‘conducting IHSA sports in early 2021’.
(How can anyone believe that basketball can be played next month in the current political climate? That is a pipe dream).
Essential workers and the elderly should be well on their way to being vaccinated by the early part of next year. But it will take a few more months before the populous access to the vaccine Dr. Fauci speaks of in early spring. Those who play youth sports—young people—will likely be the last to get vaccinated, as they should.
So what is it? Will athletic participation be based on access to a vaccine or for the vaccinated?
The IHSA doesn’t know the answer. But it throws out the vaccine as a signpost representing a desired state of normalcy, which is full athletic participation. Only there is no context for when or how that normalcy will be achieved. The only person authorized to provide context is Pritzker. And he’s not talking, except when taking credit for the vaccine roll out.
I posted a Tweet Monday off of the IHSA meeting:
The responses were one-sided:
If this small sample size is any indication of the larger opinion shared by Illinois residents, the IHSA is losing the public relations game. Trust continues to erode.
The only way the IHSA or education leaders can turn the tide is less words, more action.
We will have a season.
We are going to allow for full participation.
If active verbs are not in the vocabulary, then don’t say anything at all. Silence or “we have nothing new regarding sports in 2020-21” is better than sharing meaningless motivations of hopes and desires.
As one suburban coach told me Tuesday:
“I’m not listening anymore. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Yup. That just about covers it.