This coming year will be the last season of boys golf and girls tennis appearing in the spring. The IHSAA and IGHSAU committees have decided to dilute the spring sports selection and move girls tennis and boys golf to the fall. The associations feel there is an overload of spring sports because of the overlapping of softball and baseball. This totals ten sports competing in the spring. While they had been debating on the matter at hand for a while–seven years according to IHSAA executive director, Tom Keating, they considered girls golf and boys tennis. They ultimately decided to move the sports to the opposite season due to the number of participants per sport across the state.
This change could affect fall and spring sports in many different ways. There are sure to be challenges for coaches to overcome throughout this change. Coach McDermott, Atlantic tennis coach, claims the old saying “Robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he continues.“You just switch your sports conflicts, there are still conflicts, just with a different set of sports, we hope to find a way to work through them,” said McDermott. However, factors such as weather may present positive connotations for coaches and players. McDermott said, “The fall weather in Iowa is much better suited for outdoor activities.” During the fall in Iowa, there is much less rain, wind, and more consistent temperatures as we are on the downfall from summer instead of the uphill climb from winter. McDermott worries about numbers, specifically those of smaller schools which could impact our conference and competition. This impact may lead to scheduling schools outside of our conference.
Junior Tennis player Jacobi Harter said, “I like it because it’s something different, but I’m not keen on it now because it clashes with the fall sport I’m already involved in.” Participation in current fall sports and the two moving to fall is the prime concern for this change, and depending on the outcome, the state committees can determine whether the work was worth the years spent debating this. Hudson McLaren Atlantic golfer said, “For me personally, I like the change since I will be able to roll right into golf season as I play throughout the summer. This year I will be practicing in the offseason almost every day, just swinging the club and keeping a feel for my swing. The change is good for me since I didn’t play football and golf at this time of the year anyway.” McLaren is an example of this change benefitting a student. This now allows him to also go out for a different sport in the spring or prepare for baseball which no longer overlaps with golf. Lily Willrich, another Atlantic Tennis player said “I am excited for the change and I hope this will make it so that fewer meets are canceled due to weather inclinations, and we might have more girls participate this year because of less competition with so many other sports.” Willrich finds this to be a positive change even though she plays a fall sport. “I am happy to pick tennis which I have been doing for so long and play with my family. It is a really special and important sport to me,” said Willrich.
An overall consensus coming from players, coaches, and bystanders has seemed to be fairly positive and is looking to be a successful switch. The only way to tell how this will result is by trying it, which will officially be the school year of 2025-2026.
