IHSA to ‘Pause’ Winter Sports

BLOOMINGTON – On Tuesday, the Illinois High School Association released a statement, saying that it will “temporarily pause the IHSA winter sports season” for low-risk sports. Those sports include boys swimming and diving, bowling, cheer, dance, and girls gymnastics.

In the release, IHSA executive director Craig Anderson said, “we remain optimistic that these new mitigations, coupled with the emergence of a vaccine, will aid in creating participation opportunities in the New Year for IHSA student-athletes in winter, spring, and summer sports.”

The action was in response to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s announcement on Monday that resurgence mitigations will take effect statewide on Friday.

“I’m hopeful that by limiting our in-person interactions, we will succeed at avoiding a stay at home order like what we had in the spring – when the choice between saving lives and saving livelihoods was even more stark,” said Governor Pritzker. “Tier 3 may allow us to do both. Like in other states like Michigan and California and Washington, it’s our best effort to avoid a stay-at-home order and save lives.”

The IHSA Board of Directors will meet on November 19 to “continue plotting out potential paths for IHSA sport and activity participation through the remainder of the school year.”