The Illinois High School Sports Association Board of Directors met for its regularly scheduled meeting in Bloomington on Monday where the Board voted to discontinue the IHSA Boys Gymnastics State Series and the Debate State Series. The IHSA policy has been participating schools entering a team must exceed 7% of member schools. That number has dipped below that threshold years ago, but the IHSA allowed a grace period to see if a rejuvenation of participating could be found. The first Debate State Finals were held in 1941, while the Boys Gymnastics State Finals debuted during the 51-52 school year.
Since 2000, boys gymnastics has averaged just over 50 schools participating each year, but that number shrank to 46 te3ams in 2022 and 40 this past year. The modern era of the sport peaked at 79 participating schools in 1977. Debate saw 39 schools participate in 21-22 after averaging 49 schools the past 13 years. The IHSA currently has 817 member schools.
The IHSA has added 5 sports and two activities since 2006. They are cheerleading, dance, boys and girls lacrosse, girls wrestling, bass fishing and e-sports. Based on consistent growth recently, girls flag football is expected to debut in the State Series in the near future, while the playoffs and State Championships in 8-player football is also expected to fall under the IHSA’s oversight soon.
The sports of girls archery and girls field hockey were the last IHSA State Series’ to be discontinued due to low participation, having occurred in 1980 and 82 respectively.
In other notes from the meeting, CPR/AED training will be required for all coaches. They also moved all 3 State Championships in the 3 classes of soccer all to the same weekend.
