‘A small step in the right direction’ Kendall County ADs react to restart of winter season

It is the first step toward what is hopefully a busy five months.

That was the general reaction from athletic directors around Kendall County to good news they heard from the IHSA Tuesday in a year with very little good news for athletes, coaches and fans.

Lower-risk winter sports like badminton, boys swimming, boys and girls bowling, gymnastics, cheerleading and dance are able to practice immediately in regions no longer under Tier 3 COVID-19 mitigations. Region 2, which includes Kendall County, moved into Tier 1 on Sunday.

Those sports are allowed to begin competitions after seven practices, the IHSA announced Tuesday after its virtual meeting with athletic directors. The IHSA also announced that contact days for fall, spring and summer sports can begin Monday, Jan. 25 for schools in regions under Tier 2 COVID-19 mitigations or less restrictive levels, which also includes Tier 1 and Phase 4.

Also, schools in Phase 4, Tier 1, and Tier 2 can conduct weight training with masks and social distancing. Intra-team scrimmages for boys and girls basketball, deemed higher-risk sports, are allowed under both Phase 4 and Tier 1 mitigations.

At Yorkville, the weight room was open for small groups on Tuesday, the dance team began activity in the school gymnasium and bowling team started practice.

“It is definitely a small step in the right direction,” Yorkville athletic director Luke Engelhardt said. “We’ve waited a long time just to be able to get kids back in some capacity. We’re going to try to do some things slowly, get them in the gym for contact days. We’ll do whatever we can within the guidelines. I feel good about how we can safely offer the programs.”

Schools competed in lower-risk sports like golf, tennis, cross country and girls swimming in the fall, but all high school sports in Illinois have been on pause since Nov. 20.

On Tuesday, the IHSA updated its sports guidance at IHSA.org to include a breakdown of which activities in the lower-risk, medium-risk and higher-risk categories are allowed based on how each region is doing in the state’s tiered COVID-19 mitigation efforts.

“Very happy that we are moving forward and getting our Panthers back in action,” Oswego AD Darren Howard said. “Although the steps are still limited and tied to mitigations, having them back working with their coaches, being with their teammates, and getting back to a closer version of what is normal is just fantastic.  I do so hope that we keep trending in the right direction and that all the sports seasons get an opportunity to have some kind of a season.”

Schools expect to get more clarity for what the rest of the athletic calendar looks like following the IHSA’s Jan. 27 meeting. The status of higher-risk sports like basketball, football and wrestling is a particular concern. Football is scheduled to start practices Feb. 15 and competitions March 5 in the revised calendar, but some wonder if that is a reality at this point. Also unclear is how the IHSA can feasibly shoehorn three athletic seasons’ worth of competitions into five months.

Plano AD Jim Schmidt said that IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson has reiterated that he would prefer to not shorten the spring sports seasons, since their 2020 season was canceled. The possibility does seem to exist that the state won’t have higher-risk sports this school year.

“Everything is still up in the air,” Schmidt said. “Every calendar day that goes by, it seems less and less that we’ll get all sports in. Hopefully we’ll have some sort of resolution on the 27th and move forward and know exactly what we’ll do. We’ve made schedules and remade schedules and we need to know if we’ll be able to act.”

Schmidt said that at Plano contact days will begin next week for all sports that want to do it, if for anything to work on skill development. Engelhardt said that at Yorkville girls and boys basketball will come back later this week in small groups, split up by levels, to allow kids to work with coaches.

“The first thing is just to get them back in the gym, to get back in some capacity,” Engelhardt said. “We don’t know if and when they’ll be able to play. The goal right now is a little more than an open gym. Let them be with coaches, get with their teammates, get back to some normalcy.”

The IHSA’s winter season was set to finish on Feb. 13, so at this point there is not much of a season remaining. Schools will find out after the Jan. 27 meeting if the IHSA will adjust the schedule to make the winter season longer.

Engelhardt said the earliest Yorkville could schedule a bowling meet is Feb. 2.

“The issue with our conference is only four schools are in the same tier as us,” Engelhardt said. “The other eight schools are not allowed to start yet. We might have to look at scheduling teams that have bowling that are in the same tier as us.”

Engelhardt is unclear as to what the rest of the school year looks like – but he hopes it’s a busy one for him and all the athletes at his school.

“I think we can all speculate on what could be done, how should it be done. There’s no great solutions to get three full seasons in less than five months,” Engelhardt said. “I think there’s a priority on the sports that lost their season last year. The unknowns is what we do with football, basketball and wrestling. Regardless, they’ll do stuff in practice and do stuff they do as a team. We’ll take advantage of that and see what happens and make it work.

“It’s not anything close to normal, but it’s definitely in the right direction any time we can get kids back with coaches and back with each other.”