The guidelines for high school sports remains an ever-changing target, as the IHSA defined spectator restriction and contact days for winter sports for the 2020-2021 school year. The following clarification is scripted from the board minutes of a December 14, 2020, meeting.
The Board permitted the allowance of contact days for out-of-season IHSA sports (2020-21 fall, spring, and summer sports), as soon as the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and Governor J. B. Pritzker’s office lift Tier 3 mitigations. Contact days will be restricted to six hours per student-athlete, per sport, each week. They can include practices, drills, and intra-squad scrimmages allowable under IDPH guidance. Competition against any other high school, conducted in-State or out-of-State, is prohibited.
The Board also approved a recommendation to adopt IHSA Spectator Guidelines for winter sports. The Spectator Guidelines were created by the IHSA Sports Medicine Advisory Committee and provide safety considerations for schools.
Spectators will be allowed at school competitions, but must wear masks and social distant at all times. Basketball spectators will be limited to two groups of 50, with each group located on the opposite sides of the gymnasium. Cheer/dance competition may have a group of 50 per school, but they must exit when the performing school finishes. Swimming and diving will have a limit of two spectators per participant.
IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson stated, “The Board felt that it was important for the physical and mental health of our student-athletes to resume contacts days for all out-of-season sports as soon IDPH deems it safe. Winter sports are not included, as we anticipate all low-risk winter sports will be able to begin their seasons at the same time. Basketball remains the outlier in the equation. We hope to be able to conduct Basketball during the winter season, but if we cannot, Basketball will be provided the same contact day opportunity, as we determine where the Basketball seasons fits best, in the remainder of the school year.”
The IHSA understands the risk associated with the practices and competitions and notes that these guidelines may change.