IHSA Executive Director Shares Some Good High School Sports News

It took longer than it probably should, but high school sports are finally back in Illinois.

The IHSA had their scheduled meeting Wednesday and announced that starting immediately, high school sports would be back.

Seasons will be shortened and played out of order. For the most part, state series will not be played. But high school athletes will finally be returning to gyms, fields, diamonds, and courts in 2021.

The official breakdown looks like this.

Winter Sports will start right away. Seven practices are required before competition. Seasons will end March 13. Those sports include:

Boys/Girls Basketball
Boys swimming & Diving
Dance
Cheerleading
Boys/Girls Bowling
Girls Gymnastics

Dance and Cheerleading will have a virtual state series.

Then the Fall Sports will come next. Those sports, with start and end dates, are

Boys Soccer - Start 3/1 End 4/17
Football - Start 3/3 End 4/24 (First game will be on 3/19)
Girls Volleyball - Start 3/8 End 4/24
Boys Gymnastics - Start 3/15 End 5/22
Boys/Girls Water Polo - Start 3/15 End 5/29

Then Spring Sports will follow. The status of a state series for Spring Sports has not been decided yet. All Spring Sports (except wrestling) will begin practice on 4/5 and end their season on 6/19

Baseball
Boys/Girls Lacrosse
Girls Soccer
Softball
Boys Tennis
Boys/Girls Track & Field
Boys Volleyball
Wrestling

We had Craig Anderson, the executive director of the IHSA, on this morning to talk about the process the IHSA went through to reach this point. Craig lays out some of the guidelines that schools will have to follow. Like how many spectators will be allowed and if masks will be required during any competition.

Craig has joined the show before when the news wasn't great about high school sports and always gave us straight answers, even when it wasn't great. It was a treat to have him on today to share some good news.

1440 WROK will be covering local high school basketball games once again this year. Stay tuned to find out where and when.