‘I’m just super ecstatic’ Kendall County players, coaches react to IHSA’s release of season start dates

Jared Badie has dealt with twin uncertainties for months.

Badie, an Oswego East junior, is a high Division I prospect for football with double-digit scholarship offers. He’s also a stellar basketball player.

Since school started, he has not known if he’d get the chance to play either sport this school year. Or if so, when the seasons would start. And which sport would go first.

He finally got good news Wednesday.

The IHSA announced that boys and girls basketball and the lower-risk winter sports officially can start, effective immediately, after seven practices as the state released the full athletic calendar. Basketball will run through March 13, with football practice starting March 3 and the first games March 19.

“I’m just ecstatic and super excited to be able to play,” Badie said. “The situation is not optimal, it’s not the best, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to play both sports.”

It’s been quite a week for athletes like Badie and coaches like Yorkville girls basketball coach Kim Wensits. The Illinois Department of Public Health just last Friday announced that all sports, including higher-risk sports, could play in COVID-19 regions that reach Phase 4. Region 2, which includes Kendall County, moved to Phase 4 on Monday.

Wensits started open gym Monday, and was headed for the first day of tryouts Wednesday after hearing the news that the season is now just around the corner.

“I’m shocked, I’m happy, it’s been kind of a whirlwind to think a week and a half ago the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind that we’d be playing,” Wensits said. “I didn’t think we would even have a season, let alone to start so soon.”

The basketball season, normally a three-month grind, is now a sprint of five or six weeks with no postseason. There had been some thought that football would remain as is in the modified IHSA schedule established last summer, with games starting March 5, and basketball moved to spring.

Instead, coaches like Oswego East boys basketball’s Ryan Velasquez are wondering how soon they can start, how many games they can get in and who all they can play. The IHSA said Wednesday there is no basketball game limit, but the Southwest Prairie Conference has schools in multiple COVID-19 regions at different phases. Six SPC schools are in Will County and West Aurora is in Kane County, both of which are still in Tier 1 mitigations that allow only higher-risk sports to practice.

“The way I look at it now, we have a shortened season, get seven practices and let’s go,” said Velasquez, who brought in his varsity team for the first time on Tuesday. “I’ve looked at the calendar, pictured how many games we could have. Another piece is who we can play; in our region we could have to do some traveling. There are still a lot of unknowns, but I’m just happy we can play.”

Under the calendar released Wednesday, the football season is a six-game schedule from March 19 to April 24, with no postseason. Boys soccer and girls volleyball also start practice the first week of March, with a season running through late April.

While football coaches like Oswego’s Brian Cooney remain frustrated that Illinois did not join most states in playing football in the fall, he is appreciative for what they have.

“I am extremely happy that our kids are going to have the chance to practice, play, compete and play the sport, and not just kids from Oswego but across the state,” Cooney said. “It’s still in the back of my mind that this could have happened in the fall, and I think we all know the answer to that – other states did it, and did it safely. It’s frustrating that we didn’t get a full season, but extremely happy to get going in March. Something is better than nothing. We’ll take what we have and run with it.”

Spring sports like baseball, softball, girls soccer and track, meanwhile, had their whole 2020 seasons wiped out because of the pandemic.

The IHSA has repeatedly stated that it was a priority to give those spring athletes as close to a normal season as possible this school year. Under the current plan, spring sports start practice April 5, with the season running through June 19.

A postseason for spring sports is still to be determined.

“The IHSA was in a hard spot to begin with, trying to squeeze so many sports into a small period. They tried to give everybody something and not take away from those sports that already lost things,” Yorkville baseball coach Scott Luken said. “Selfishly, from a baseball standpoint, for the athletes in our program, it’s great that they will not have two years in a row without a postseason. It appears to be close to a full season.”

A concern that Plano athletic director Jim Schmidt has is that wrestling, a higher-risk sport usually held during the winter, is now moving from April 19 to June 12. That could lead to conflicts with multi-sport athletes that also do football and track.

“Why wouldn’t they do wrestling now? Why would you push wrestling back to a spring sport, where our kids now have track,” Schmidt said. “There’s just not going to be a lot of kids out for wrestling. That’s not good for us. We have a lot of good kids coming in; it would have been beneficial for us to have it now.”

The overlap between seasons, always an issue, could indeed be a greater concern with this truncated calendar. Velasquez and Cooney both stressed that, especially under these circumstances, coaches will hopefully be flexible to give athletes maximum opportunities.

“If there is an opportunity for a kid to do multiple sports, the adults should do anything they can to make it happen,” Cooney said. “Hopefully if there is an opportunity kids can take advantage of it.”

Badie, for one, said that he planned to play both basketball and football.

“I’ve always wanted to have the opportunity to play both sports at the college level, and wanted to pursue that dream,” Badie said. “There is no doubt that I wanted to play both. If I was allowed to I was going to do it.”

Coaches and athletic directors now begin the frantic push to get a season scheduled, and started. Schmidt said that the Interstate Eight Conference has a tentative schedule for basketball, with games starting Feb. 9. Schools would play each other on the same night for boys and girls basketball, at opposite locations. One I-8 school, Kaneland, is in Kane County, which is still in Tier 1 mitigations.

The SPC is expected to meet Thursday morning to discuss its league schedule.

“I can tell you that I’m not ready to play a game in seven days, and neither are the kids. You want to play but at the same time you don’t want to rush into things,” Wensits said. “Anything is better than nothing. It will be different, we are used to three and a half months. To think it’s six weeks, it will almost feel like summer league, but it will be good.”