IHSA delays penalties on Maine South; start of lacrosse on hold

The Illinois High School Association made a pair of holding calls at its board of directors meeting Monday.

A decision on a penalty against Maine South for incidents which occurred during the football season was delayed until later this week, according to IHSA Executive Director Marty Hickman.

Hickman also said the start of a state series in boys and girls lacrosse was delayed until the 2011-12 school year at the earliest because participation numbers were not reached.

The IHSA board met with Maine South principal Shawn Messmer, athletic director Steve Adams, assistant athletic director Jaret Kirshner and head football coach Dave Inserra regarding the use of counterfeit sideline passes and other sideline issues during its third consecutive Class 8A football state championship victory in November.

Teams in Class 5A through 8A are allowed 29 sideline passes (excluding players). Concerns were also raised regarding the behavior of coaches during the trophy presentation in Champaign.

Hickman said he had some follow-up questions raised by the IHSA board for Maine South. He plans to then review all the information before making a ruling on a penalty later this week.

“We appreciate the cooperation of Maine South and its administration since these incidents occurred,” Hickman said in an IHSA release. “They were genuinely sorry and recognized that these negatives have overshadowed the great positive they achieved in winning a state title.

“They also provided a well thought out plan to prevent these types of abuses from occurring in the future.”

The start of a state series in boys and girls lacrosse was contingent on having at least 65 boys teams and 40 girls teams entered to compete in the state series. As of Monday, there were only 47 boys teams and 33 girls teams entered, according to the IHSA.

The number of teams needed to start a state series was based on the numbers on in October, 2009 on the IHSA Emerging Sports List, which the IHSA board uses when deciding to add a new sport or activity.

The number of teams registered on the Emerging Sports List has grown to 68 for boys and 42 for girls. But the IHSA received confirmations from 14 schools on the list who would not be able to enter into the state series this season, making the team benchmarks impossible to reach.

“This decision won't come as surprise to most of our membership,” Hickman said. “We had a thin margin of error to reach the benchmark of 65 teams and we had been preparing folks behind the scenes that this result was likely.

“Several schools who had anticipated being able to start lacrosse programs a year ago, simply could not today given the financial situations in their districts. We could have waited until the February 1 spring sport deadline to reach this decision, but felt like it was better to end the speculation and allow everyone to begin preparing for the spring accordingly.”

Hickman said the decision “does not change the IHSA's plan to go forward with a boys and girls lacrosse state series, it just delays it.”