Darren Kinnard
Section618.com
For many high school football players, coaches and fans, the past week may have felt like trying to drive for a game winning touchdown late in the fourth quarter. Rumors of getting back on the field sooner rather than later with a potential October through December season were starting to get louder and louder.
The drive was underway.
High school football coaches across the state have organized “Let Us Play” rallies Saturday afternoon at the state capitol in Springfield and the Thompson Center in Chicago to try to convince Gov. J.B. Pritzker to change course and allow all fall sports.
The team is across midfield and marching toward the red zone.
During a press conference Tuesday, Pritzker made it clear high school football isn’t happening any time soon. “I’m not willing to sacrifice people’s lives or their health–neither the children nor their parents who would be affected also,” Pritzker said. “We’re being careful about it. We are relying on doctors and researchers to give us the information. This isn’t a political decision. I know that there are people would like me to simply make it a political decision to allow people to endanger themselves.”
Intercepted.
The Governor defended keeping Illinois one of two states in the Midwest not playing high school football in the fall. Minnesota is the other but could be on the verge of changing course.
“We have the lowest positivity rate in the Midwest–still too high,” Pritzker said. “Look at the state’s you’re talking about. They all have very high positivity rates, double digits in most. Those are states, fine, if they’ve decided to endanger children and families in those states by allowing certain contact sports to take place, that’s their decision. That’s not something that’s good for the families, the children of Illinois.”
The IHSA confirmed Friday that Executive Director Craig Anderson had sent a letter to the Governor and Deputy Governor Jesse Ruiz requesting to resume control over determining the resumption of IHSA sports and activities, although a statement was issued to qualify the context of that letter.
Here is Anderson’s statement about the letter: “With support from the IHSA Board of Directors, I issued a letter on September 10 to Governor Pritzker and Deputy Governor Ruiz, that seeks permission for the IHSA and its Sports Medicine Advisory Committee to resume control over determining the resumption of IHSA sports and activities. However, the content of that letter has been greatly misconstrued on social media in a short amount of time. There have been no discussions, let alone proposed timelines, for resuming any sports at this time. Should our office receive a positive response from government officials, it could result in the IHSA reexamining its previously released season schedules, as well as postseason schedules, for the 2020-21 school year.”
Monday, the IHSA announced an easing of schedule restrictions for winter, spring, and summer sports. The Return to Activities guidelines had limited scheduling to only two contests per week. That limitation is gone, and schools can schedule up to the maximum allowable by sport according to the existing IHSA by-law. Some athletic directors we visited expressed concern about whether playing additional games would be approved by the Governor or the Illinois Department of Public Health.
The reality is, under the Governor’s All Sports Policy, sports considered medium risk such as basketball, currently can scrimmage but not play competitively. Sports considered high risk such as wrestling, are currently limited to no contact practices. Practices for winter sports are scheduled to start November 16, that’s just shy of nine weeks. There have been no standards shared as to how or when sports will level up (or down).
How many timeouts are left?