One of the 23 by-law amendment proposals IHSA member schools will consider involves a further limitation on summer contact for coaches and athletes in sports other than baseball and softball.

The IHSA released the proposals Tuesday and will conduct 28 in-person and virtual Town Hall meetings over the next few weeks with an administrator from each member school required to attend one. The IHSA’s Legislative Commission will later vote on each proposal and any that receives a simple majority will appear on the all-school voting ballot. Voting is set from Dec. 4 to 18.

Proposal 11, submitted by Danville athletic director Mark Bacys and Somonauk principal Eric Benson, on behalf of the Sports Medicine Advisory Committee, calls for the number of contact days to drop from 25 to 18 in the summer months for most sports.

The proposal is aimed at keeping multi-sport athletes healthy for the upcoming school year.

The proposal reads as follows: “The Sports Medicine Advisory Committee feels this recommendation will help athletes’ physical and mental healthy by reducing the number of contact days our high school athletes can have. Right now, many multi-sport athletes go year-round from sport to sport; this is weighing on our athletes to a point where they are more beat up coming out of summer than they are at the end of the season. The by-law amendment will still allow weightlifting and conditioning if no sport-specific training occurs. This by-law amendment will keep our kids active in our schools and hopefully give them the break they need over the summer to rest, relax and enjoy their breaks from school.”

Further, any violations of said by-law will be subject to sanctions imposed by the discretion of the IHSA executive director.

“I think the change would be a good thing, especially for the multi-sport kid who is going from camp to camp to camp, they don’t get much of a break with 25 days per sport,” Crystal Lake South boys basketball coach Matt LePage said. “The 18 to 20 days is plenty for most coaches, especially if the kids are lifting weights and doing other things.”

Jacobs boys basketball coach Jimmy Roberts feels like the reduction is days is a little too much.

“The reality is, as high school basketball coaches, we really dont get too much time to coach and work with our kids on the floor, if you are abiding by IHSA rules,” Roberts said. “You get your contact days in the summer and then you can’t work with them again until Day 1 of practice.

“When your season ends, you can’t work with them until the contact days start in the summer. With playing 31-game schedules, one games start being played there is not a ton of practice time to get better. So much of that time is spent on game prep.”

Some of the other notable issues brought up in other proposals were removing the 1.65 multiplier for non-boundaried schools, expanding opportunities for summer participation in strength and conditioning, eliminating limitations on number of games in tournaments, extending girls wrestling’s number of competitions to meet the boys and adding girls flag football as an IHSA sport.

The IHSA has used a 1.65 multiplier since 2005 for non-boundaried schools. Proposal 13, submitted by Williamsville AD Adam Eucker, would remove the 1.65 classification multiplier and instead use an average of the enrollment of schools within a 30-mile radius of a non-boundaried school for its classification number.

Marian Central is the only non-boundaried school in McHenry County that would be affected. Marian’s current enrollment is 389, 641.85 with the multiplier. The Hurricanes would get moved up significantly with an average of the larger schools within 30 miles.

Marian athletic director Cody O’Neill mentioned it would bring a lot of work upon the IHSA each year to determine classifications with that proposal in place.

There also is a proposal for a district format for football, which would mean teams no longer played in their conferences.

“I’m more concerned about it going to districts,” O’Neill said. “I’m very happy with our current conference and don’t want to lose that.

“Some people in my circle (ADs) would want it, but I’m opposed to the enrollment averages and the districts.”

Marian started competing this school year in the nine-team Chicagoland Christian Conference.

Proposal 12, submitted by Crystal Lake South AD Jason Bott, would expand the opportunities for strength and conditioning workouts of no more than four days per week and no more than 90 minutes per session. In summers, these would not count as contact days as no coaching of skills of a sport would not be done.

“It seeks clarity for the ability for coaches to instruct in terms of strength and conditioning,” Bott said. “Right now it’s kind of an open gym where kids can just go in and lift. This will give them some ability to teach kids how to do squats or cleans the appropriate way and then setting up programs that are developmentally appropriate vs. just having them come in and lift.

“It will provide some structure and safety from that perspective. It would help with getting kids to do the right exercises.”

Bott stressed that any instruction would be done in the proper way to do specific lifts and it would not be instruction for that athlete’s sport.

“To do it in a safe and structured way and get feedback from kids would be a good thing,” he said.

Dundee-Crown AD Steve Gertz submitted Proposal 22, which would increase the number of girls wrestling competitions from 18 to 25, which is what the boys teams have.

Proposal 23, submitted by Willowbrook principal Dan Krause, would establish a fall season for girls flag football, a sport many schools have experimented with for a few years.

The Chicago Bears have served as an organizing body and helped develop that sport since 2021. Contests would be limited to 25 exclusive of the IHSA state series.