Jan. 06--The Illinois High School Association announced Tuesday that three proposed amendments on its annual referendum passed by a majority vote of IHSA member schools.
The hotly debated proposal to overhaul the football scheduling system was not one of them.
The IHSA legislative commission approved six proposals for the December online vote, including Proposal 10, which would have eliminated football conferences in favor of a districting system that grouped schools by size and location. Teams would play regular-season games almost exclusively against others in its division and would have minimal control over scheduling.
Proponents of the amendment said that it would force schools to qualify for the IHSA state playoffs by beating schools of similar size. The current, conference-based system requires teams to accrue five wins against any opponents to qualify for postseason consideration.
Mount Carmel, for example, qualified for the Class 7A playoffs at 5-4 and advanced all the way to the state semifinals. Two of the Caravan's wins came against Leo (Class 3A) and Hales (Class 2A), whose combined enrollment is less than half of Mount Carmel's.
Opponents of the proposal said that it would eliminate many rivalry games and would eliminate schools' ability to schedule their own games.
IHSA member schools shot down the proposal 395-212, easily the largest margin of defeat for any proposal on the ballot. Five of the 612 schools that submitted their ballots did not vote on Proposal 10.
The other two failed proposals would have lengthened the scholastic bowl season.
Proposals 1, 5 and 15 passed and will become part of the IHSA bylaws on July 1. Proposal 1 will allow the IHSA board of directors to examine and approve international exchange programs beyond those approved by the Counsel on Standards for International Education Travel. The amendment passed 370-239 and gives the IHSA authority to confer eligibility upon students in programs that do not appear on the CSIET list.
Proposal 5 removes the summer "dead week" measure that was adopted last year. The dead week prohibited coaches from having any contact with their student-athletes during the week of July 4, with the exception of softball and baseball coaches.
Proposal 15 will allow the first girls tennis match to take place four days earlier on the IHSA calendar.
Since the 1999-2000 school year, 139 proposals have gone to a IHSA member school vote. Only two proposals had failed before this year's ballot.
IHSA executive director Marty Hickman said in November that the legislative committee included Proposal 10 on the ballot despite the fact that most people opposed the measure at town hall meetings conducted this fall.
"At the town meetings, there seemed to be little support for a sweeping change like this," Hickman said in a statement. "But it speaks to the passionate feelings we've heard from both sides of this issue that the commission thought it best to put the question to the membership."
