To Hoop Or Not To Hoop
Why a summer season played in the spring is best option for basketball
(Photo Credit: Review Atlas)
This week is the latest finishing line date for the start high school sports in the state of Illinois.
This Thursday, the Illinois High School Association’s Board of Directors is meeting (again) to determine the direction of basketball in 2020-21. Monday, Nov. 16, is the official IHSA-sanctioned start date of the girls and boys season but most schools in the state are not participating due to public health restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
What is desired outcome from Thursday?
“Just hoping,” is a common response from coaches.
“Make a decision,” is another popular answer.
Based on the current climate as it pertains to the virus and schools, it is hard to see how the IHSA’s Board of Directors can re-classify the season to be played during a traditional winter schedule.
Even a truncated one—for example, pushing the start date to January 2021 and playing into March—is assuming the sport’s public health ‘high-risk’ obstruction is resolved.
Monday, at his daily press briefing, Governor Pritzker had this to say when asked about the Thursday meeting:
I think there has been a lot of interaction between IHSA and our staff as well as Illinois Department of Public Heath. We’ll certainly make available our staff for consultation…I think we’ve all been pretty clear where we are with regard to winter sports…we’ve relied on the best experts to come up with a plan for the winter and by the way, since then, Covid has gotten a lot worse
The accuracy of Pritzker’s ‘best experts’ part of the quote is dubious at best. It’s more accurate to say he’s been dishonest about the process with which he has doled out decisions about athletics since the summer. But I’m not going to take up any more digital space in this article re-examining all of Pritzker’s misdeeds.
The majority of the 800-plus schools in Illinois that are affiliated with the IHSA are balking at the Monday start date, concerned over potential liability risks of playing a season in defiance of public health guidelines. But any type of winter schedule in some form is preferred by almost all coaches and administrators.
On my weekly podcast last Thursday, Stevenson Athletic Director Tricia Betthauser said this:
The first option we need to be looking at...is pushing it back while keeping it in this winter timeframe. Get as much of a season completed before the end of February
This is a sentiment shared by Betthauser’s colleagues. But it’s not realistic when the public health hinderance (high-risk label) remains and Pritzker’s Monday comments all but confirm no change is imminent.
When the IHSA announced the Nov. 19 meeting last week, it touted how this time around, the organization was seeking an audience with Pritzker and was inviting more voices to the negotiating table.
Here’s a section from the IHSA statement:
The Board announced that they are formally inviting representatives from Governor Pritzker’s Office and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) to attend the IHSA Board meeting on November 19. Additionally, the IHSA will also seek representation at the meeting from the Illinois Principals Association (IPA), the Illinois Association of School Administrators (IASA), the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), and a coalition of nearly 200 school superintendents who recently contacted the Governor regarding school sports during the 2020-21 school year.
The Board hopes to create a dialogue and build a more collaborative relationship with all the entities involved with developing sports policy in our state as everyone tries to navigate the myriad issues caused by the pandemic,” said IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson. “The Board’s decision to move forward with the IHSA basketball season was not meant to be adversarial. It was rooted in a desire to receive more direct communication and data from our state partners. They hope all the groups will see the mutual benefit of increased discourse and be represented at the meeting on November 19.
As I wrote in my mailbag last week, the reasoning behind inviting other education leaders to get involved is to play the long game.
The two most popular sports in Illinois are football and basketball. They are by far the most revenue-generating sports in the state. They are also currently labeled ‘high-risk’ by the IDPH. The label prevents games from being played. At the end of the day on Nov. 19, the IHSA and various education associations are hoping to know what direction to take moving forward. Minus a Hail Mary turnabout and flip to transparency over secrecy by Pritzker and his public health subordinates, here are the likely questions facing all parties after the meeting concludes:
For the IHSA: How do we re-classify the basketball season?
For Superintendents and Principals: Are we prepared to break ranks and play a football and/or basketball season against public health recommendations?
That may be what it takes.
Monday, Pritzker did confirm dialogue between his office and the IHSA.
But based on past history, it’s almost certain he and the IDPH will offer nothing in terms of numbers or metrics and rather give vague responses to questions along the lines of “we’ll see where things stand in December or January.”
So once again it is up to the IHSA and education leaders to step up and carve out a path forward.
Monday, I reached out to two dozen or so coaches about playing basketball in the spring or summer season.
Here are the current dates for those seasons:
Spring: Feb. 15 through May 1
Other sports in the spring: Football, boys soccer, girls volleyball, boys/girls water polo, boys gymnastics, girls badminton
Summer: April 19 through June 26
Other sports in the summer: baseball, softball, wrestling, boys/girls track, boys/girls lacrosse, girls soccer, boys tennis, boys volleyball
Based on the responses, the summer season appears to be more appealing.
All schools deal with the same conflicts when it comes to athletics. Two of the common ones are sharing multi-sport athletes and gym/field space. Which season most eliminates these two problems?
The summer, that being April to June.
“No real interference for multi-sport athletes other than baseball,” said one suburban coach.
Currently, the IHSA does not allow athletes to play more than one high school sport per season. The IHSA would have to lift that rule to allow for athletes to play multiple sports in the spring and/or summer.
A suburban coach said football and basketball in the same season is more of a hurdle to overcome then say, basketball and baseball.
The reason the coach stated is football players who also play basketball often need time to recover physically between seasons, which are played back-to-back in a normal year.
“(There is) no good way to balance football and basketball at the same time,” the coach said. “That wouldn’t even be the right thing to do as kids in football need time for their body to recover.”
One coach prefers a shortened spring season but understands that holding some type of state series and, ideally, state tournament, is critical to the IHSA’s viability and credibility.
“I think it’s imperative the IHSA is able to sell tickets to fans for revenue, which may make summer (a better option),” the coach said.
That point—having fans in the stands—makes an April to June season, while not guaranteed, much more practical.
“We’ll understand more in six months,” another coach said. “We can have more of a regular season and a state tournament with crowds at games.”
“Maybe more time to get a vaccine and get the governor to let sports happen,” said a suburban coach.
Recent news about vaccines are promising. Dr. Fauci admitted the preliminary data on the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are better than he anticipated.
But will the vaccines be available widely enough by the spring for Pritzker and IDPH to remove basketball’s ‘high-risk’ label? Or will district superintendents be comfortable giving the endorsement for basketball to be played without public health approval?
“If it gets out to the regular population by March or April we could maybe have a regular season by May and June. Maybe even no masks for players,” one coach said.
Addressing the gym/field space issue…it’s very school-specific.
Some schools have more space than others relative to enrollment. But an April to June basketball season would conceivably diminish gymnasium problems that would arise in a Feb to April season by eliminating two sports that have to be played indoors.
Of the 10 sports basketball would share a summer season calendar with, eight (boys/girls track, boys/girls lacrosse, baseball, softball, girls soccer, boys tennis) are played outdoors.
When stacking more sports in one season, it creates a higher likelihood conflicts will arise. Not just for athletes but for coaches, many of whom coach multiple sports and would be faced with the same being-in-two-places-at-once dilemmas as athletes.
Having enough officials to referee games in when football and basketball overlap is a concern, according to coaches.
One coach told me he spoke to referees who said there is no way they could pull it off. There are simply not enough trained officials.
Communication and cooperation is critical to pulling seasons off with minimal disagreements.
“Coaches must work together to help kids play all they normally would. We must give up some to gain a lot more,” one suburban coach said.
One problem that could arise from an April to June schedule is a season extending well past graduation. But that is seen as minor hiccup by coaches. It’s not unusual for spring sport athletes to work through conflicts with for instance, a graduation ceremony being held on the same day as a state series match or game.
But a season that goes into late June could cause senior athletes to have to delay their college arrival. Many incoming freshman college athletes take summer classes before the fall semester or begin workouts with their new teams in June. One Chicagoland coach, who has multiple 2021 grads committed to colleges, has already reached out to those players’ college coaches in an attempt to mitigate potential conflicts.
Whatever the specific circumstances at a school, there is no easy fix to moving a winter sport to the spring or summer season.
Pulling it off will require the same traits from those involved as since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic—collaboration, teamwork and above all, patience and persistence.
“There’s no good situation,” a coach said. “We have to keep working towards a solution.”