Because of COVID-19, the sports seasons have been moved around to different parts of the year.  Athletes may now be forced to choose between joining the team for the school or joining the club sport team. Usually club sports are scheduled in the off-season of school sports.

Which should kids do? School or club sports?

On the safety side of this decision, every sport is trying to be as safe for the athletes as possible so that they are able to have a season.  Priority #1 of all sports is the safety of the athletes. 

“There is not one specific policy, but rather many policies specifically for different situations: in class, out of class, indoor sports, outdoor sports, etc,”  said Greg Geiger who is a football and bowling coach for the school.

“Every practice as players enter the building, they get their temperatures checked and are given hand sanitizer. Additionally, our coaches wipe down all equipment between practices and masks are worn by all athletes,”  said the Stateline volleyball coach, which is a club team that practices at the Round Lake Beach sports complex.

So with both teams using procedures to keep their athletes safe, athletes will not be at any higher risk doing either their club sport or their school sport.

Let’s move onto playing time and participation. For school sports, because it is mostly a participation based program, play time between players will be fairly even where with a club sport, which is created for good players to go out and win, the better players will most likely get more play time than other players.  With COVID restrictions, there aren’t many club competitions to participate in, so for extra practice, athletes may want to join a club sport.

“We haven’t started registration yet; we are waiting for official feedback from the IHSA before we open registration. I would expect most, if not all of our team, to return from last year; however, there is the possibility that we will be one of the only winter sports that is able to compete this year. If that is the case, we might have a large influx of athletes looking to join us so they have a winter sport,” Geiger said.

If they choose to limit the number of kids who are allowed to participate, athletes may be forced to join a club sport if they want to join the sport. In the bottom line, it comes down to what athletes think their capabilities are and what they want to get out of the program.