The Iowa High School Athletic Association and Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union have collaborated to reduce spring schedule congestion by moving boys’ golf and girls’ tennis to the fall sport seasons starting in the 2025-26 school year, said Chris Cuellar, Communications Director for the IHSAA in the association’s Board Briefs released last week.
The changes, Cuellar wrote, address decades-long concerns from member schools over scheduling and were approved by both the IHSAA’s board and IGHSAU’s board following discussions at a joint meeting in early July.
“Our member schools have been asking for ways to relieve the crowded spring sports seasons for years” IGHSAU executive director Erin Gerlich said. “The new changes provide relief in an already busy spring, and an opportunity for the IGHSAU and IHSAA to enhance the state tournament experiences for tennis and golf. A lot of work has gone into this process and we appreciate all of the input we have received regarding these changes.”
Iowa’s current spring schedule includes eight sports – golf, soccer, tennis, track and field for both boys and girls – and overlaps seasonally with baseball and softball. In 2025, boys’ golf (3A, 2A, 1A) will compete in both the 2024-25 spring season and the 2025-26 fall season. Class 4A boys’ golf has competed exclusively in the fall since 1993 and features the earliest competition start date of any fall sport.
The adjustment was discussed across 2023-24 district meetings, the IHSADA state conference, advisory committees, and the 2023 IHSAA membership survey. “Reducing the congestion in the spring schedule has been a topic of conversation among ADs, our staffs, representative councils, boards, and the joint IHSAA & IGHSAU committee for several years,” IHSAA executive director Tom Keating said. “Moving our Class 3A, 2A, and 1A golf competitions to the fall to align with Class 4A is a step toward easing that congestion.”
News of the decision, while not totally unexpected, was still a bit of a surprise for Solon head boys coach Adam Stahle. “It was being discussed, but it didn’t seem like it would be anything that would be immediate. So then it got announced and I found about it through social media. I didn’t get an email or anything saying it was going to affect us. It definitely caught a lot of people off-guard, it came out of left field.”
Now comes the process of changing schedules, something of a daunting task. “Especially with the WaMaC,” said Stahle, noting the conference schedule is pretty well set from year-to-year. “You know what it looks like and then we have some open dates where we go out and try to find competition that we feel will be adequate for our team for that year; and obviously that’s going to change a little bit. It’s going to be interesting to see how this all shakes out. For years it’s been the same sort of schedule and now it’s going to be there might be an opportunity for us to play in some 4A schools’ tournaments now.”
Another potential opportunity from the shift, Stahle said, might be better weather during the season. This year Solon’s first competition was held Monday, April 1st at Mount Vernon. According to the National Weather Service, the high temperature was 46 degrees. The spring sports athletes typically endure temperatures from the 30s to the 50s, rain-sleet-even snow showers, and wind. Lots of wind.
“Even when we were able to get outside (for practice, or competition) it might be 35 degrees with a 25-mile per hour wind and spitting rain at you. By the end of the season, at the State Tournament, the weather was a lot better. So from that aspect, this is a huge plus.” Stahle noted currently practice begins shortly after spring break, meaning unless the golfers have access to indoor facilities during the winter, they’re having to shake off the rust. With the new fall start, “Kids are now going to be able to practice during the summer in good weather and play in tournaments. That’s definitely going to be a benefit. And I think, the opportunity to see where you stand by challenging yourself to play some of these larger schools, will definitely be a positive.”
As with any change, for all of the “pros,” there are of course some “cons.”
“I know a lot of the smaller schools have been very vocal about competing against the machine of football (for student athlete participation). As a Solon kid myself, that will be a challenge. That being said, I have all the confidence in the world with the coaches that we have in Solon (Emy Williams for cross country and Lucas Stanton for football) that if we see the opportunity where we have athletes that are going to be able to help both programs; trying to find that common ground to have kids able to participate in both sports.” Multi-sport athletes are common in Solon with girls golfer Sydney Dee also running with the Lady Spartans track and field team and 2024 grad Gehrig Turner playing baseball, which has had its season start sooner and overlap into golf, for examples.
The IHSAA and IGHSAU noted among nine other peer state associations in the Midwest, seven separate golf seasons by gender and all nine separate tennis seasons. The increased availability of facilities, coaching, and school resources, plus the reduction of scheduling conflicts are the top cited reasons for those successful season separations.
“Other Midwest states have found success with this model and I am confident our schools will adjust to the new format,” said Keating, who served as president of the NFHS in 2023-24. “While we recognize some of the initial challenges, the advantages of reducing scheduling congestion in the spring, reducing lost class time, and giving the option of having the same coach for spring and fall combine to lead us in this direction.”