Darren Kinnard
Section618.com
For nearly two months, the entire state of Illinois has been under what is called Tier 3 COVID-19 mitigations, which among other things shut down high school and youth sports in the state. Friday, Governor JB Pritzker announced that Regions 1 (Rockford area), 2 (Peoria area), and 5 (southern Illinois) met the criteria to advance to Tier 2 which means the return of sports in various capacities.
The IHSA sent out the following guidance for schools that move into Tier 2:
*Low-Risk Sports: Can begin practice immediately and will begin competition within their geographic region on a future date to be determined by the IHSA Board.
*Medium-Risk Sports: There are currently no winter sports categorized as medium-risk.
*High-Risk Sports: Team training with no physical contact may begin immediately.
The Low-Risk sports are Badminton, Boys Swimming and Diving, Cheerleading, Dance, Boys and Girls Bowling, and Girls Gymnastics. There are no winter Medium-Risk sports. Winter High-Risk sports are Boys and Girls Basketball.
Weight training may be conducted in regions under Tier 2 mitigations as along as social distancing and masks are utilized. Contact days for spring and summer sports may being on January 25. Schools in regions that remain in Tier 3 mitigations, including Region 4 must remain paused.
“This is certainly positive news for three regions of the state, but we still have a long way to go until we get all of our student-athletes back to being active,” said IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson. “High school student-athletes are hurting from a mental, physical, and emotional standpoint, so we hope this is the first step toward getting that back to some normalcy.”
Additionally, the Illinois Department of Public Health updated its All Sports Policy to show what is allowable for the different risk levels in the different tiers. Looking ahead, schools in regions that reach Tier 1 will be able to have contests in Medium-Risk sports. This is a major development with volleyball and boys soccer among the sports set to start practice February 15.
After Tier 1, the next step on the Restore Illinois plan is Phase 4. When looking at the step by step improvement for the Tiers and the resulting guidance for sports, it would be logical for Higher Risk sports to be allowed to play games, but the IDPH has given no public indication if that would be the case.
The IHSA Board of Directors is scheduled to hold a special meeting January 27 where it hopes to have more concrete answers on schedules for the rest of the current school year.