Illinois HS Director Sheds Light On Model Program

By John Neporadny
Special to BassFan

The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) has become the standard-bearer for state-sanctioned high school bass fishing programs. The IHSA program started in 2008 and this past spring had a record 250 schools compete in the program’s sectional tournaments.

IHSA Bass Fishing Series director Kurt Gibson was queried as to how the Illinois program operates and handles various issues that other states might encounter when trying to establish a high school bass fishing program.

How do the Illinois schools handle liability insurance for the bass fishing program?

That is handled just in the same manner that our schools handle it for all of the other activities they participate in. They provide general liability for their students in some fashion. Some schools may end up charging their students.

The only thing our association offers is catastrophic insurance during our competitions in the event somebody were to have a catastrophic injury, but a lot of times what I am hearing is the schools are having a rider policy added on to what they have already gotten to cover this new event.

What are the requirements of a boat captain?

We consider bass fishing an "activity" in Illinois. and with that comes fewer hurdles for coaches and boat captains to clear. If it is a "sport" in our state, then there are very specific rules that coaches would have to meet. But since we consider it an activity, it is much easier for a person who has no kind of teaching credential or anything to be involved.

So for a captain, they have to be school-approved and we set an informal age (minimum) of 21. So that is all that is required to be a captain.

What are the requirements of a coach?

To be a coach, you have to be approved by your school and a lot of schools are making the coaches meet the same standards as an athletic coach would, even though they are not required to by IHSA. So they are making them take concussion training and drug testing, which the bass fishing isn’t subject to (through IHSA) and even though that is the case, schools are still making their bass coaches go through that process so that they put them on equal footing with the athletic coach.

That part about being school approved is important because that means they are going before the school board and a lot of times that has resulted in, at the very least, a criminal background check. So the fishing coach could just be a local person who is an avid fisherman and wants to get involved.

Are sponsor logos allowed on the anglers’ jerseys during IHSA tournaments?

No. The only kind of logo or marks that can be on a shirt during one of our tournaments is the school logo. They can have sponsor logos on their boats, but not on anything they are going to wear like hats, shirts or life jackets.

Can sponsors award scholarship money to IHSA anglers?

Another beauty of being an activity is in Illinois we have an amateur rule that would restrict student athletes from receiving gifts, benefits or money from being involved in an athletic event. But because it is an activity, those rules don’t apply. Even if bass fishing was a sport, a sponsor giving scholarship money (after the student graduates) would likely be okay.

How do your teams qualify for the sectionals and then the state championship?

They don’t have to qualify for sectionals – they just sign up, but they can only enter two boats. We have 22 sectionals, so once we know how many schools are entered and we know how many bodies of water we need, then we assign the schools to one of the sectional tournaments and try to have the same number of schools in each Sectional so all the schools will be competing against the same amount of boats.

Then the Top 3 boats from each sectional advance to our state final, so we have a maximum of 66 teams. We have had years where our sectional dates have fallen on some pretty hard weather days and we have had sectionals when maybe one boat caught a fish or no boats caught a fish. So three is the max for teams qualifying for the state finals, but if nobody caught a fish from that sectional, then nobody advances. You have to catch a fish in the sectionals to advance to the state finals.

The state finals are a 2-day tournament with a five-fish limit each day (for each two-angler team) and we add up the weights each day and whichever boat has the most poundage of fish caught over the 2-day period are the state champions.

What is required of a school to join the IHSA bass fishing activity?

For all of our sports and activities we have no entry fee, no registration fee. The only expense the schools might have is there are some lakes we use that still require the schools to pay a launch fee of usually $5 or $10 maximum. So in Illinois it doesn’t matter whether it is bass fishing, basketball or track and field, there is no entry fee so the schools just go onto our website and they just check a box that says they plan to enter a tournament.

We used to charge entry fees but we haven’t done that for about 10 years. We like to think that makes for a pretty good savings for our schools and gives them a little more incentive for them to get involved. So that seems to work out here.

Since it is an activity, there is not a season for bass fishing. With our sports we say you can only do football from this week on the calendar to this week and basketball from a certain week to a certain week. Bass fishing has no defined season, so we have schools that get into bass tournaments in the fall even though we don’t do our state tournament until the spring, and then they get more tournaments in the spring to fish. They could also have tournaments in the summer. It is really up to each school.

What are the student eligibility requirements to be on a bass fishing team?

Even though it is an activity, they still have to meet all of the academic requirements we have in place. So they have to be passing what amounts to at least five classes a week and have to pass five classes the previous semester to be eligible. So this fall, students who want to participate in our bass fishing tournaments next spring will have to pass five classes in the fall and then be passing a minimum of five classes during the spring semester.

Now the individual schools might have a tougher standard than that, but that is the (IHSA) minimum they have to keep. They also have to turn in a physical (examination form) and anything else the school might require.

Will IHSA anglers lose their eligibility if they win cash or prizes in an adult tournament?

If one of the high school students participated in a tournament that paid money out, they could win a million dollars from that bass fishing tournament and not lose their eligibility.

Are your sectionals and state Finals ran by IHSA officials or members of other bass fishing organizations?

The tournaments are all run by our office. The state finals are run directly by our office and the sectionals are run by school administrators. We do, at the state finals, use FLW personnel who help with the weigh-ins. During all of the tournaments we get support from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the Conservation Police and the Corps of Engineers at all of our tournament sites to help with boat checks and have people on the water in case there were some emergencies. If a school hosts one of the sectionals, I have heard that local bass clubs have come out to help them with the tournament.