Cross county becomes sport to watch for the fall
HUNTLEY, Il – When the Huntley High School boys and girls cross country teams met in Deicke Park on Aug. 10 for their first official practice of the year, they knew they would be the big attraction on the fall sports calendar.
The Huntley Red Raiders football team was sidelined a week earlier when the Illinois High School Association announced that football would be moved to the spring. Left for the fall season were sports that allowed for greater social distancing: cross country, golf, girls tennis, and girls swimming. For various reasons, only cross country promised to draw a crowd.
“It feels great,” assistant coach Jason Monte said of the start of practice. In cross country, the coaches run with the students, and Monte was sweating as he stopped to talk.
“It means a lot for them to have the fall season, to keep with how they normally would go through the school year,” said head coach Matt Kaplan. “Many of these kids do cross country with us in the fall, and then they’ll do track in the spring, so having one in the fall and one in the spring helps them with the transition of the school year.”
While the runners and coaches aren’t expecting football crowds to come to their meets, they’re still prepared for increased interest.
“The thing about spectators is we have to make sure we are able to keep distance when we have a competition,” Kaplan said. “We have the rule of 50 people in a given zone, and any other groups have to be 30 feet apart. So, the challenge for any school that hopes to host a race is to make sure than any moms and dads and spectators who come are able to view from a distance.”
With a chance for more fans, the idea crossed Kaplan’s mind to use the football stadium as the finish line, with runners completing a lap around the track before crossing the line in front of the stands, a la distance races at the Olympics.
“Honestly, I’ve thought about that because we’ll have to use our campus (for a competition),” he said. “If I have to get truly creative, the football stadium and the bleachers are a great asset.”
He said the team runs a meet at another school that makes use of their stadium for a finish line. Restrictions still apply to cross country this year.
“We’re kept to two- and three-team competitions, and no race can have more than 50 boys and girls in it,” Kaplan said. “So there’s just going to be a lot of work upfront for coaches putting together their races and knowing how many kids can be in each one.”
For the running Red Raiders’ boys team, five of last season’s seven top runners return. The girls team will be led by two sister teams: Brianna and Brittany Burek and Molly and Grace Allen.
Barry Wells, coach of the girls tennis team, didn’t have visions of his teams competing in front of a football stadium of fans as he ran about 45 girls through drills on the high school’s courts.
Girls tennis continues in its normal fall season, and Wells said the changes had little impact on the players. The remote learning schedule shouldn’t affect the teams’ practices or matches, he said.
“It’ll probably be the normal amount of spectators,” Wells said. “We don’t get huge crowds like football but there are usually pretty dedicated parents and I expect they’ll come out and watch. We’ll have different rules than normal about people sitting farther apart.”
Although the IHSA moved football to the spring, there’s no guarantee that it will be played at all this year. It still depends on the pandemic and coronavirus cases in the state.
“Unfortunately, everything is fluid due to COVID-19,” District 158 Communications Director Dan Armstrong wrote in response to questions from MyHuntleyNews.com. “All sporting schedules are subject to change at this time.”
If any participants in any of the fall sports contracts the coronavirus, Armstrong said, “The IHSA has guided us to work with our local, county health department regarding its protocols and steps. We would follow guidance on a case-by-case basis.”
Besides keeping football players from competing on the field, the football switch could cost the high school money.
The Huntley Athletic Boosters use the games to help raise funds for their organization and have brought in about $280,000 over the past five years, according to their website. That money has been used to buy a scoreboard in the stadium for $40,000, indoor signage throughout the high school for $36,000, scoreboards for softball and baseball for another $22,000, and $15,000 in scholarships to athletes.
