ILLINOIS — While high school cross-country and golf teams continue their fall seasons, student-athletes from other sports in the state are still stuck on the sidelines. Following rallies, online petitions and social media activism, some Illinois athletes and their parents have decided that suing the Illinois High School Association might be their last option.

Parents David Ruggles, Chris Warden and Kelly Ridges, on behalf of their student-athlete children, are named as the lead plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday in DuPage County against the IHSA.

Among the contentions made in the lawsuit, the plaintiffs state the IHSA Board of Directors adopted a series of guidelines (Return To Play and Contact Day Guidelines) that altered the 2020-21 sports seasons mandated by the IHSA bylaws. The guidelines, according to the lawsuit, include an outright ban on certain sports (football, boys soccer, girls volleyball) during the time periods, to which the IHSA bylaws limit those sports. The lawsuit argues these amendments to the IHSA bylaws were not enacted through the legislative process that the IHSA Constitution requires. The plaintiffs are asking the court to find them invalid and void them.

“We feel like we’ve got a really good chance to win this thing. It’s kind of a two-tiered approach where we bring this to the attention of the IHSA. We get them on a technicality that they didn’t follow their bylaws,” Ruggles, the parent of a child who plays basketball, told Patch. “They were supposed to put this out to a vote when they flip-flopped seasons like that. They didn’t do that.”

The lawsuit states that because the proposed class includes all IHSA student-athletes whose sports seasons were amended by the Return To Play and Contact Day Guidelines, the number of putative class plaintiffs is “so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable.” It uses football as an example to illustrate the number of athletes affected, with more than 150 different high schools participating in IHSA football alone during the 2019-20 season.

According to the lawsuit, the representative parties are student-athletes who attend IHSA member high schools and whose athletic careers have been directly disrupted by the Return To Play and Contact Day Guidelines, “altering their sports season or banning them from playing during the sports season mandated by the IHSA By-laws altogether.”

Student-athletes at IHSA member schools are intended third-party beneficiaries of their schools’ membership in the IHSA and the IHSA Constitution and IHSA bylaws, according to the lawsuit.

In July, Gov. J.B. Pritzker — based on guidance from the Illinois Department of Public Health —announced new restrictions on youth sports in the state, broken down based on risk level for the coronavirus. In response, the IHSA decided to move football (higher risk), boys soccer (medium risk) and girls volleyball (medium risk) from the fall season to spring 2021. Sports deemed “lower risk” — such as golf, tennis, cross-country, and swimming and diving — have been allowed to compete as usual with some tweaks to scheduling and coronavirus-related safety precautions in place.

“We have the lowest positivity rate in the Midwest. [It’s] still too high,” Pritzker said Sept. 15 and has reiterated on other occasions since. “The states you are talking about all have very high positivity rates, double-digit positivity rates in most. If they’ve decided to endanger children and families in those states by allowing certain contact sports to take place, that is their decision. It’s not something that is good for the families and the children of Illinois.”

Patch has reached out to the IHSA for comment on this story.

“We are aware of the media reports regarding the lawsuit, but have yet to receive any official notice about it,” Matt Troha, assistant executive director of the IHSA, told Patch earlier Tuesday. “We are refraining from comment until we have seen the lawsuit and have the opportunity to review it with our legal counsel.”

Ruggles believes that if the plaintiffs win this case, the fall sports that had been moved to the spring will be flipped back to the fall.

“The IHSA has told us, essentially offline, and [Executive Director] Craig Anderson has also stated publicly, that this is what they want. They want to play in the fall,” Ruggles said. “We think what will happen is we’ll win, they [IHSA] won’t contest it, and then it will be up to Pritzker to decide what he wants to do.”

Joe Trost, a student-athlete advocate in Illinois who provided Patch with a copy of the lawsuit, noted Tuesday in New York a mother sued the state over the canceling of the high school football season.

The lawsuit in New York, as reported by WIVB-4 out of Buffalo, notes that high school football is being played in neighboring states such as Pennsylvania.

Earlier this month, two rallies, organized by a group called Let Us Play High School Sports Illinois, took place in Chicago and Springfield. The group, according to its Facebook page, is asking the governor to immediately allow resumption of high school sports that have been canceled for the fall. A number of petitions have also been filed.

In recent weeks, the IHSA has been finalizing details for next month’s postseason for the fall sports that are being played. On Sept. 23, its board of directors voted to expand the IHSA State Series in two fall sports, adding a second round of postseason play in boys and girls golf and boys and girls cross-country. Both sports were each initially scheduled to culminate their respective seasons after IHSA regional meets on Oct. 24, but will now conclude their respective seasons after the sectional round.

Golf sectionals are slated for the week of Oct. 12-17, while cross-country sectionals are expected to unfold Oct. 29-31, according to the IHSA. The winter sports season is still scheduled to begin in November.

Related:
Pritzker Reiterates No High School Football This Fall In Illinois
Letter To Pritzker ‘Greatly Misconstrued’ On Social Media: IHSA
Pritzker Places Restrictions On Youth Sports, IHSA Responds
Lawyer Sues IHSA On Behalf Of His Kids, Other Student-Athletes