Entering the 2021-2022 school year ETHS student athletes are excitedly anticipating more “normal” seasons for their sports. The word “normal” has been thrown around recently when discussions are held regarding how the 2021-2022 school year will look. When it comes to athletics, ETHS Athletic Director, Chris Livatino says the Athletic Departments’ protocol will follow suit to what the school guidelines are. 

“Students, coaches and fans that are part of an indoor sport must wear masks. Sports that are outside do not require masks.” Livatino elaborates, “and then we will continue to monitor everyone’s personal health and ask them to do the same. We will not have the electronic daily self-certification requirements.” 

Furthermore, beyond the logistics for how sports will function, athletes will be pleased to learn they will be able to fully compete in their upcoming seasons. 

“Contests should be ready for regularly scheduled seasons again. So full conference schedule, tournament’s, state championship series, all that should be should be to be as it was before,” Livatino says. 

Lastly, all sports seasons will be reverting back to their previous schedules. This does mean that sports who were in different seasons this past year, might have a shorter off-season. 

“Throughout the entire year, all the sports will be back to their regular scheduled seasons. So wrestling, which was “a summer sport” this year is going to return to being a winter sport, and badminton will go back to being a spring sport, and football, volleyball and soccer will be fall sports and so forth. So we expect as much a return to normal as possible with the scheduling of seasons,” Livatino confirms.

“The biggest adjustment is that students inside for indoor sports will need to wear a mask, which would really only impact girls volleyball. Swimming and diving is exempt from the mask rule for obvious reasons.” 

Additionally, the majority of ETHS sports are members of the Illinois High School Association (IHSA), according to the IHSA the Suburban Cook County region is in phase five, which means there are currently no scheduling restrictions on sports. To clarify, depending on changes outlined by either ETHS or the IHSA, currently, all sports are permitted to return to regular activity. 

For the upcoming fall sports seasons, the Athletic Department is looking forward to seeing students build strong communities amongst each other, a key aspect of high school athletics that was absent during the pandemic. 

Livatino expressed he is excited for the time when “we remain safe at all times from COVID and we’ve done an incredible job as a community to do that. We don’t want to take any steps back and so I’m looking forward to continuing that trend. I can’t wait to see the student sections and the spectators return to our sports in the fall,” Livatino adds, “I’m looking forward to having those return for our kids.”