IHSA Legislative Process: Football Districts Rescinded as Member Schools Approve 10 Proposals

For Immediate Release

IHSA Legislative Process: Football Districts Rescinded as Member Schools Approve 10 Proposals

Illinois High School Association (IHSA) member schools approved 10 amendment proposals in the annual by-law referendum that ended December 16, 2019, including a proposal to rescind a football district scheduling system that was approved a year ago, and slated to begin in 2021. As a result, regular-season football scheduling and the IHSA Football Playoffs will remain unchanged from their current format.

“There is incredible passion for high school football in our state, and the subject of football district scheduling has been no exception,” said IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson. “Many coaches and communities were excited about the prospect of district scheduling when the vote passed a year ago, just like many are excited today that it will ultimately not occur in 2021. We do not expect the discussion surrounding football regular-season scheduling and the playoff structure to dissipate, so we will be charged with continuing to facilitate discussion and ideas among our member school coaches and administrators.”

The online ballots were tabulated and certified in the IHSA Office on Tuesday, December 17.

Here is a summary of the proposals and the vote totals. (The numbers in parentheses indicate the total of yes, no, and no opinion votes. For an amendment to pass, yes votes must outnumber no votes.)

• Proposal 1 (passed 448-181-73): Expands the opportunity for approved schools to participate in invitational tournaments during the regular season.
• Proposal 2 (passed 592-80-28): Expands the administrators permitted to serve on the IHSA Board of Directors to include the administrators designated as the Official Representative of their schools.
• Proposal 10 (rejected 328-349-24): Reduces the number of summer contact days from 25 to 20.
• Proposal 11 (passed 489-149-62): Eliminates a required annual determination of classification which therefore permits the two-year classification cycle.
• Proposal 13 (passed 206-133-362): Moves the start of the Fall Baseball season one week earlier for practices and contests.
• Proposal 14 (passed 428-246-25): Moves the start and ending dates for the IHSA spring baseball and softball seasons (practices and contests) a week later.
• Proposal 15 (passed 374-241-87): Removes the by-law directing the IHSA to implement a football scheduling system for regular-season varsity games, impacting the current ability for schools to schedule games AND qualify for the playoffs as it is currently administered.
• Proposal 17 (passed 244-31-422): Modifies the contest limitations for boys and girls lacrosse to 20 matches in the regular season as opposed to a match and tournament limitation.
• Proposal 18 (passed 410-85-202): Modifies the team dates limitation in wrestling to a fixed number of dates (25) rather than a combination of dates and tournaments. Modifies the individual match limitation in wrestling to a set number of matches (45) rather than a combination of dates and tournaments.
• Proposal 19 (passed 343-38-318): Moves the ending date for the girls swimming season limitation one week earlier.
• Proposal 25 (passed 470-215-16): Permits schools an opportunity to appeal a player ejection when the player was ejected as a result of the misapplication of a playing rule by an official.

Following is a summary of member school participation in the amendment process over the past 10 years.