Prefer to read? A transcript is below:

0:00 – Ana Hurtado
High school sports across Illinois are facing a major shift. The Illinois High School Association, or IHSA, has introduced new scheduling rules that are already impacting athletes, coaches, and schools statewide.

0:15 – Nick Parry
Well, with the different sports, obviously it just kind of changes the flow of the season of when sports start, and that kind of thing. Girls wrestling is going to bump up, I think, two weeks. Boys’ volleyball is going to bump up a week from where they’ve historically been. So it just kind of throws off the timing of when their club season ends, when their offseason stuff starts, and that kind of thing.

0:36 – Ana Hurtado
Parry went on to address the potential challenges or obstacles that might arise with this new policy set in place.

0:43 – Nick Parry
I mean, the biggest challenge is going to be is that we may have kids that have sports that now overlap a little bit, so while one sport is ending, another one may be starting. We may miss tryouts or that kind of thing because they’re in their state series for the one before, so that makes it a little bit tough. When you have that kind of thing and you’re adding a sport for kids to go to, that kind of thing obviously gets in the way of some academic time.

1:06 – Ana Hurtado
The updated rules are designed to address concerns about athlete workload, travel demands, and academic balance, but not everybody agrees on whether these changes are for the better.

1:16 – Alfredo Rojas
It kind of made it more difficult as a student athlete to navigate around with work as well as schoolwork because, especially in these later months in volleyball, we become so packed out. As early as the first week of volleyball, we get packed out really quickly.

1:37 – Ana Hurtado
IHSA Assistant Executive Director Matt Troha elaborated even further on the reasons why this policy was made.

1:45 – Matt Troha
The girls regionals would happen, then I think they’d have a weekend off, and the boys regionals would happen, and then they’d go girls sectionals. I think maybe both sectionals on the same weekend, and a lot of those sports many times share their coaches, so it made for some difficulty. They wanted to kind of make them more separate seasons.

2:09 – Ana Hurtado
As the new IHSA scheduling rules take effect, schools across Illinois are adjusting to a new normal. Whether these changes will have lasting positive impacts remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: high school sports are evolving.