“I think we’re all taking precautions, both educationally and athletically,” said St. Anthony Athletic Director Kevin Palmer. “We’re adjusting day by day. But at the end of the day, it’s all about the kids. We have to remember that.”

Preparing for the upcoming season has been difficult. Football, volleyball and soccer were cancelled in the fall and moved to the spring, requiring that fourth sports season during the school year. Between the Illinois Health Department, Illinois State Board of Education, the IHSA and IESA, plus the governor’s office, new and changing guidelines have been sent out numerous times.

Talk about trying to hit a moving target.

Effingham Activities Director Dave Woltman, Teutopolis Athletic Director Laurie Thompson and Palmer took some time to discuss the sports season. They talked about the difficulty of guaranteeing the safety precautions for everyone, plus the challenges they face in scheduling and the uncertainty that exists in completing an entire season.

The fall sports season now consists of baseball, softball and cross county at the junior high level. High school sports include boys and girls golf, boys and girls cross country, girls tennis, girls swimming and baseball. In order to get in four sports seasons, schedules will be reduced.

For example, Woltman said the basketball schedule, which can begin November 30, may be reduced from 31 games down to approximately 20. And nobody knows if there will be any type of post-season competition for any of the sports.

Athletic directors, on top of all their other responsibilities, now have to address several safety precautions at every sporting event. There will be safety precautions in place, and if they aren’t followed, sports could be discontinued.

Those fall outdoor precautions include:

• No more than 50 people can attend any sporting event. Included in that count are athletes, coaches, any sort of meet official or volunteer, and spectators.
• All spectators must abide by IHSA “Return to Play” Phase 4 guidelines and maintain a minimum of six feet separation from each other.
• Masks are required for all athletes, coaches and spectators. Athletes can remove their masks while they’re actually competing, but must wear them at all other times. For example, a golfer can remove his/her mask while making a shot, but must wear them otherwise.

 “We can’t expect athletic directors and coaches to oversee all of that,” Woltman said. “There has to be some self-awareness and self-responsibility. Everyone has to be responsible if this is going to be successful. If not, it could cost these kids the opportunity to compete.”

“Maintaining all these safety precautions is going to be difficult,” Thompson added. “Ultimately, we have to maintain social distancing for everyone at these events. I think it could be chaos, but we’ll do everything we can and whatever it takes so the kids can play.”

“And things are continually changing, which just adds to the challenges,” Palmer noted. “We’re going to put signs up and rope off some areas to make people aware of what needs done.”

And putting together legitimate schedules is another issue the athletic directors are facing. As of August 14, the high school fall schedules weren’t completed. Athletic directors have pretty much had to tear up their normal schedules and start over. These schedules will certainly be reduced and modified, especially since schools are now relegated to play only other conference schools and those located within a particular COVID region. Effingham, Teutopolis and St. Anthony can try to schedule schools within Region 6.

“It’s challenging finding one school within your COVID region that has a matching open date,” Woltman explained. “This has created a lot of puzzle pieces that have been tough to put together. And with adding a fourth sports season, it will only make it more difficult to put these schedules together.”

“Scheduling officials is another big deal,” Palmer added. “We’re trying to work with their schedules, jumping back and forth, going from season to season. That’s a challenge, too.”

As an independent, with no conference affiliation, Teutopolis found itself in a real precarious situation. But the Apollo Conference came to the rescue. The Wooden Shoes will compete against the schools in that conference – Effingham, Charleston, Lincoln, Mahomet-Seymour, Mattoon, Mt. Zion and Taylorville – for the 2020-2021 school year only.

“We are so thankful the Apollo Conference accepted us,” Thompson admitted. “There are not a whole lot of independents in the state, plus we normally play at lot of schools that are outside our COVID Region. It’s been a smooth transition. We’re very appreciative our kids will have the opportunity to play.”

Despite all the preparations being made, the athletic directors realize there is no guarantee seasons will be completed.

“We’re optimistic, but if the number of positive cases keeps going up, I don’t know how we’ll handle that,” Thompson said. “And it’s hard to make serious plans. Since March, just about the time you start thinking one way, changes are made and it ends up being totally opposite.”

“We’re hopeful,” Woltman added. “I know the coaches and kids are anxious to get going. I know they’ll be ready. Whether we have a season or not, we’ll see. I know we’re going to do everything we can do to make that happen.”

Like virtually everything else the past five months, optimism for high school sports is there, but the uncertainty still lingers.

“We have to try,” Thompson stressed. “Getting kids back to school and playing sports are important, both physically and mentally. Teachers want these kids back, too. We can’t forget this is about the kids. We’ll all do the best we can, but who knows if we’ll ever get back to normal.”