The head coach of a girls’ basketball team in a southern suburb of Chicago, has given his rationale of his school’s defiance of the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) board of directors’ initial opposition to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s announcement of the delay to the start of the basketball season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Edward “Dino” Ivory, head coach at Crete-Monee High School in Crete, said in a Zoom interview that for liability purposes his school, “as with most suburban schools in the area,” will follow Pritzker’s direction.
“IHSA is ignoring the order; however, they don’t have a lot of schools that are complying with that issue,” Ivory said in the Zoom interview. “It’s not really working out, you know, as IHSA had planned for it to work because you have a lot of Chicago public schools that are not involved, and you also have a lot of suburban schools that for liability purposes don’t want to be involved as well.”
The IHSA board of directors, according to an Oct. 28 press release, initially voted to proceed with the basketball season scheduled to begin with practices on Monday, Nov. 16, defying Pritzker’s announcement in an Oct. 27 press release stating the high school basketball season would be delayed because of increased coronavirus cases in the state.
Pritzker said in the Oct. 27 press release that basketball was moved from a medium to a high-risk sport because of “close contact of players and indoor play.” Using a levels system, the new designation means that basketball is placed at “level 1,” in which “only no-contact practices and training are allowed.”
The IHSA’s modified season scheduled practices to begin on Monday, Nov. 16, the first contest to be played on Monday, Nov. 30, and the end of the season on Saturday, Feb. 13, 2021, according to the IHSA’s website.
However, the IHSA in a Nov. 11 virtual update session asked that schools planning to begin basketball practice on Monday, Nov. 16, adhere to the Level 1 mitigations from the Illinois Department of Public Health All Sports Policy until at least Thursday, Nov. 19, when the IHSA board will have its regularly scheduled meeting, according to a press release.
“The Board plans to provide more direction on basketball practice and games following the meeting on November 19,” stated the press release. “The Board revealed that among the 546 schools who responded to the survey (IHSA has 813 member schools), nearly 300 IHSA schools do not plan to start basketball on November 16, and another 212 schools remain unsure of their status.”
Ivory said in the Zoom interview, “It’s a travesty … on both ends."
“I understand the governor’s position because we don’t want to get any kids to be harmed during this pandemic, and on the other end, I think it’s cruel for a lot of the kids who are in their last year, trying to get to college, to play basketball,” said Ivory.
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