IHSA Releases Recommendations for Fall Sports including Cross Country

By Michael Newman

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The IHSA on August 6 released its recommendations for fall sports that includes Cross Country for the 2020-2021 school year. The document makes it a little clearer on guidelines to hold cross-country meets while at the same time staying in line with the State of Illinois Guidelines.

IHSA CROSS COUNTRY CONSIDERATIONS

Ever since the IHSA made their announcement a week ago, coaches and athletic directors have been scrambling to come up with meet schedules that would fit into guidelines.

That has changed. The original plan had to 50 people per race with only three teams involved.

For Small Meets, the IHSA Stated: “Small meets (i.e. duals and triangular meets) are most effective in maintaining fewer competitors, school personnel, officials, and spectators.  Small meets make it easier to space runners out at the start and finish of a race to ensure for appropriate social distancing.  Small meets must adhere to the event capacity guidelines outlined in IHSA Return to Play Phase 4 as well as those outlined in this document.”   

For Large Meets, the IHSA Stated: “If schools have scheduled large meets such as invitationals or anything larger than a triangular, then again, hosts must ensure that ALL event attendees are held to the capacity guidelines outlined in IHSA Return to Play Phase 4 as well as this document (i.e. combined total of no more than 50 student participants, coaches, officials, and timers per race).”

The interpretation of this we are not going to see 50 runner races in any kind of meet. How many teams we have will determine how many coaches there will be. How many timers will be working at your meet? How many workers will be working the finish line? How many trainers will be at that finish line? How many IHSA officials will be at your meet?

Add all those numbers together, subtract them from 50, and you will get how many runners you will have in a race.

Spectators are allowed at meets but will have to follow the guidelines from the IHSA and State of Illinois. You can have groups of 50 people but will need to stay within 30 feet of each other. It may mean creativity from meet organizers where you paint off areas where spectators may view a race. How will you have team tents / areas?

In the new normal of high school cross-country in Illinois, if we want to have meets bigger than dual or triangular meets, it will mean schools that want to host meets will need to think outside of the box. There are a couple of other state associations that have developed meet ideas that are acceptable in what the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).

For example, some meets will not allow competing athletes to warm up on the course. Teams can warm up, bus to the starting line, put on their spikes, run their race, finish their race, and then have a time limit to leave the race area.

Flight races involve 1 runner for team. You could have a bigger number of fields, but a lot of meet organization would be involved. Wave races would allow a meet to have teams run together, but that number could be between four and five teams with seven runners per team to get you to that magical number of 50. It would be up to the meet to decide how many teams you could have to safely run a meet. If you are using a timing company, you could merge those time into one final result per level. At the same time, meets will last longer into the day.

The IHSA also recommended to keep October 24 as an open date on schools’ schedules for the purpose of a potential date for some form of state series event. The IHSA again stated: “Currently, State Series events are To Be Determined in order to ensure that the events can be conducted safely and in accordance with the Governor’s Restore Illinois Guidelines.  The IHSA will make every effort to conduct some form of State Series event and will announce decisions related to this as they become available.” 

It leaves open a possibility that a state meet can be held. The state is currently at a Level 3 for sports guidelines meaning that meets can only be held within their conference or a meet within their state mandated region.

If we stay at Level 3 to the point where the IHSA is forced to decide, then the only thing that we could have on that October 24 run by the IHSA is a regional meet.

Let us get to Level 4.

Wear a mask. Practice social distancing and spread the word to people who do not want to do these things that they are hurting the chance for a student to run in a state championship meet.