Indiana High School Athletic Association Commissioner Bobby Cox joined WCDQ 106.3 on Monday afternoon to discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected high school sports across the state of Indiana.
When local schools closed on March 13, it prompted the IHSAA to postpone the boys’ basketball tournament which was set to play the regional round on March 14, and they later canceled the remainder of the tournament and the entire spring sports season when Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb closed all schools through the end of the academic year on April 2.
“We shutdown the basketball tournament with hopes that it might come back,” Cox said. “I totally support the decision of the state superintendent (Jennifer McCormick) and our governor to close schools until the end of the school year, so it was an easy decision to cancel spring sports.”
Many athletic departments around the state have taken to social media to honor their senior spring athletes, and Cox thinks it’s the least schools can do to pay tribute.
“Whatever we do we aren’t going to replace the fact that contests are gone,” he said. “but at any rate the idea to pay some tribute to the seniors and thank them for their loyalty to their school and what they contributed to their school community is really good.”
Financially, Cox said the IHSAA has taken a hit with the cancellation of both the remainder of the boys’ basketball state tournament and the spring sports season, and estimates the organization to be running at a one million dollar deficit heading into the fall. While he says that will require some significant cutbacks and changes to business operations, the IHSAA is overall in good condition compared to some neighboring states.
“I will tell you the IHSAA is in pretty good shape,” Cox said. “When I have this conversation with my colleagues around the country, it’s not nearly the same conversation. I know of at least a half dozen state associations that if they don’t have a fall, they will be shutting their doors.”
Cox, who took over the top job at the IHSAA in 2011, will retire this summer, passing the torch to Paul Neidig. Even though he will be stepping aside, he is both optimistic and realistic about high school sports taking place in the fall.
“My assistant and I always used to say that we run the fun and games department,” he said. “That’s really what this is guys. It’s games for kids. This isn’t about anything but trying to provide an opportunity for young people to play sports, and if we are going to do that we need to do it in the most safe and efficient manner we can.”
“My consideration is let’s get healthy and let’s see if we can have a fall season, and have our communities come together triumphantly in the fall and get past this, I think it would be good for us mentally, good for us emotionally, and certainly be good for us healthy wise.”
In 10 years at the helm of Indiana’s High School Athletic Association, Cox feels like a lot was accomplished to better their mission to serve high school student athletes.
“The status quo is unacceptable,” he said his predecessor told him. “So there were some things that I really wanted to accomplish during my tenure that were very important to me and very important to our membership.”
Cox formed a partnership with Special Olympics Indiana and helped form the Champions Together program and the creation of Unified Sports. He also spearheaded the creation of the IHSAA foundation to create a philanthropic arm to give back to membered schools, and even with criticism along the way, in 2013 the IHSAA implemented a success factor rule to help even the playing field for all schools.
Neidig will replace Cox officially on Aug. 1.
