Why Illinois Won't Bring Back Football

Zero political motivation to change keeps kids and coaches on the sideline

By now we have all seen the data. We understand what the data means.

We understand that positivity is tied to the rate of testing. The more tests, the more cases.

We understand what to do when someone tests positive for the coronavirus. They don’t go to the hospital, they don’t get put on a respirator. We understand that getting on with it is a healthier approach than hiding from an unseen contagion. Co-existence vs. seclusion.

What we so painfully understand more so now than ever, that no fall football in Illinois has nothing to do with us or science or data.

It has to do with the autocratic heavy-handedness of one man, Governor JB Pritzker, or Gov. Kids Don’t Matter.

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Everybody knows this by now, that politics is driving decisions about sports in the Year Of The Virus. I’ve written about it in this space since July. I’m not going to irrigate dying soil.

But when I saw what happened last week in Michigan, I couldn’t help but again ask myself…why? Why can’t this state do what others have done?

In August, it was Pennsylvania and Kansas, citizens in those states not accepting their politicians dictating what they can and can’t do when it comes to athletics. They rallied the troops and got sports back. Then last week, more publicly, it was Michigan.

When the governor in that state ruled against sports, a mom, Jayme McElvany started a #LetThemPlay petition and Facebook page. It attracted tens of thousands of signatures and posts. It provided an outlet for parental outrage over the governor’s didactic overreach. But online petitions are one small tool in the activist toolbox. They often get swallowed up in the digital tide. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in 2020, physical forms of protests still matter.

On August 28, the capital city of Michigan, Lansing, the internet petition started by McElvany morphed its physical form with a #LetThemPlay rally, with hundreds in attendance. Athletes, parents, coaches and state representatives took the microphone. They spoke about the importance of athletics and how they know the health and safety risks and are perfectly capable of reaching their own conclusions about whether playing sports is worth the risk.

The rally took place right on the steps of the capital building. This event is what cable news anchors would refer to as ‘optics.’

Six days later, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer reinstated fall sports, including football.

Was Whitmer staring out the window of her office on Aug. 28 and after deep personal contemplation have a change of heart? A few weeks after publicly saying she was ‘glad’ football wasn’t being played in the state of Michigan, did she do a deep dive into the data and come to a different conclusion about the physical and mental benefits of ‘contact’ sports? Of course not.

Someone convinced Whitmer it would be politically advantageous for her to #LetThemPlay. Politicians politic.

So Illinois is given its comparative data point—a Midwestern state with a democratic governor who had previously proved to be a #ShutItDown politician. Only she changed her mind.

What about Illinois? I know. It can’t happen here. But I wanted to hear it from someone else. So I made a few phone calls.

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(Photo Credit: Batavia Spectator)

Dennis Piron is a Batavia guy. He will tell you in so many words.

“I am married to the community in which I live,” Piron said. “I am a lifetime kid here. I love the people who live here and the children and families.”

Since 2011, Piron has been the head football coach of the Batavia Bulldogs. Always a sleeping giant, Prion took a good program and made it great. He’s won 94 games and two state championships in nine seasons.

This is the type of football community Batavia is—its classification enrollment for 2019-20 was just over 1,900. Over the summer, more than 200 kids came to the Bulldogs summer camp. Assuming a 50-50 gender enrollment split, of all the boys that attend Batavia High School, approx. 20-25% play football.

Piron is also an assistant athletic director at Batavia and for the last few years, serves on the Illinois High School Association’s Sports Medicine Advisory Committee.

I asked Piron if there had been any recent dialogue between the SMAC and IHSA.

“I’m hesitant to think there is much happening,” Piron said. “The issue in the state of Illinois is simple. The governor is dictating what is happening with youth and high school sports. It’s not the IHSA.”

The last time of any substantive talks was earlier in the summer. After the virus wiped out spring sports and June camps, things were starting up again in July. Momentum was such that Piron believed a full slate of fall sports would be played.

“We were working very hard to come up with rules and guidelines to come up with a plan to get sports back. Everyone was on the same page,” Piron said.

But then Lake Zurich happened. The school actually followed procedures and did the right thing, but lazy media coverage portrayed the camp as a virus super-spreader. That anecdote is all Pritzker needed to ram through his agenda, which has nothing to do with kids and everything to do with political ambition.

On a day in late July, IHSA was to reveal its plan for the summer and fall sports.

“The IHSA and the SMAC were willing to follow NFHS (National High School Federation) guidelines. We were planning on moving forward with the season and we had a step-by-step plan to do so. We were willing to do whatever was required,” Piron said.

But they never got the chance. Pritzker called a press conference and wielded his Rameses-like iron fist. There would be no football, no soccer, no volleyball. So it shall be written, so it shall be done.

“We got pre-empted by the governor’s office and he decided to crack down on youth sports. It was literally an hour before the IHSA was going to have their meeting,” Piron said.

An astounding footnote about Pritzker’s power grab—leading up to the press conference, he could not have been less interested in youth sports. Until he was. For a minute.

‘The governor’s office wasn’t even returning phone calls or emails from the IHSA,” Joe Ryan said, head football coach at Sycamore High School and member of the IHSA’s football advisory committee. “It’s not that important to him. He doesn’t give a rip if we are playing football or not.”

Today, as we sit in early September, Illinois is in the same spot as in July.

While other states exercise agility, understanding that decisions made a month or weeks before can be corrected as data changes, Illinois lies in a pit of permanence.

“We are under the same one page document that the governor put together (in July). It hasn’t been talked about and people are going crazy,” Piron said. “The governor and his office have decided what everything is in Illinois. There is no room for discussion. It’s not happening in our state houses or our legislature. You are going to see the frustration really begin to build with each passing week in the month of September.”

Piron said he was happy for Michigan. Happy for the other states that reversed course and are playing sports this fall. Anyone who fights to give kids opportunities should be lifted up and praised.

Then he said something about what is being missed. What already has been missed.

“In the end there are other things they are losing. People say, ‘Oh homecoming is just a dance. Prom is just an event. Graduation is just a piece of paper.’ I don’t know if that’s true. I think those things are incredibly important and when you say we can’t do these things just because? They end up hitting a brick wall,” Piron said. “This is a once in a lifetime shot. It’s not like you can do it next year. That’s not how it works. I don’t know if anybody considers losing once in a lifetime.”

The catalyst for movement in other states is citizens stopped believing what they were being told. They stopped watching newscasts spreading fear porn and consumed objective data. They saw the CDC is relaxing guidelines. They understood that positive tests will rise with more robust testing and to ignore the panic-stricken reporting of such data. They had conversations that contextualized what their internal common sense meter was telling them.

Football is risky, yes. But not any more of a risk because of the virus.

“Football doesn’t even meet the guidelines for close contact in a game. That is how the virus is spread? OK, if respiratory diseases are spread by droplets, that’s why kids wear masks and shields while playing,” Piron said. “So what’s the issue? Does it pass from me touching your hand? Then you sanitize and you wear a mask. What’s the issue?”

We know what the issue is. All roads lead back the governor’s office.

Unlike other states, no one is speaking out. Silence from the IHSA. Silence from state representatives.

No political pressure. Continued indifference from Gov. Kids Don’t Matter.

Piron whistling in the graveyard.

“Parents and athletes need to express their opinions. Unless this is what they want. If this is what the vast majority want, then who am I to say?” Piron said. “I’ve coached 30 years and I’ll hopefully coach many more years. But there is an element of these kids where they are being cheated that once in a lifetime.

“Please tell us the benchmarks and goals we have to reach and our kids and coaches will be part of the solution.”

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So what can be done? Is there an avenue to be taken to affect change?

Much respect to the people who held and showed up to a rally in Wheaton Tuesday night (Sept. 8). They put truth to power and fought for their kids.

And there is online petition circulating. As of this writing, it is approaching 25,000 signatures. Bravo.

Will it matter? Can Illinois do as Michigan did last week?

“The IHSA’s hands are tied and it has everything to do with governor’s office,” Ryan said. “Whether other states are reversing, I don’t think he worries about it.”

As much as it pains me to write, football is done in 2020. Fuhgeddaboudit.

The next major sport is basketball. Guidelines are in place for the sport to resume in November. But does anyone believe we’ll just roll through the fall into hoops season?

We might as well wish upon a star.

But there are encouraging signs.

The Illinois Basketball Coaches Association held a recent town hall meeting with the IHSA about the 2020-21 season. They published a Q&A on their website about the meeting. The organization appears to be getting out in front of things and showing some leadership.

A continued outbreak-free fall sports season would be another inflection point.

But it’s not enough.

There needs to be more athlete and parental involvement. And not reactionary activism. Don’t wait for the governor to flip everything on its head right before the season starts in two months.

Use social media as an platform to spread awareness about the physical and mental benefits of basketball, or any other sport. Why do I play? Post videos and messages answering this question. Show that health and safety guidelines are being followed and that diligence is the best friend of participation. Tag the governor’s office on social media. Send emails. Hold a rally in your hometown.

Organize. Be better. Find a way.

Because sitting idly by and hoping for something to happen won’t work in 2020. Politicians don’t care. They care about politics.

“This politician game is very frustrating as the kids are the pawns,” Ryan said.

Grab the ball before it’s taken away.

Don’t lose out on once in a lifetime.