IHSAA, IGHSAU to separate golf, tennis seasons starting 2025-26

According to executive director Erin Gerlich, the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union’s decision to move girls tennis to the fall came with lots of research, input and data.

That’s what Newton head girls tennis coach Erick Zehr is putting faith into. But on the surface, it’s difficult to see how the decision will benefit programs already at a disadvantage.

“I’ve met Erin. I think she’s doing good things for the union,” Zehr said. “I’m putting a lot of faith in her and the research they’ve done. But I am concerned and nervous that this will hurt schools like us.”

In a joint statement on Monday, the IGHSAU and the Iowa High School Boys Association decided to reduce spring schedule congestion by flipping girls tennis and boys golf to the fall starting in the 2025-26 school year.

For the most part, it has not been well received across the state of Iowa.

“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.”

Change is hard. And this certainly won’t be easy for any female athlete who plays volleyball in the fall and tennis in the spring or for male athletes who play football in the fall and golf in the spring.

But the changes 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.

Iowa’s current spring schedule includes eight sports — golf, soccer, tennis and track and field for both boys and girls — and overlaps seasonally with baseball and softball.

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 4A is a step toward easing that congestion.”

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’m 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.

“For boys’ golf, fall should provide good course and playing conditions, and the high school season will immediately follow summer, when most golfers have enjoyed the opportunity to work on their game.”

In 2025, boys golf (3A, 2A, 1A) and girls tennis (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.

“I’m not sure what to think about the change as of right now,” Baxter head boys golf coach Kyle Stribe said. “It will be interesting to see how it affects golf numbers with football and cross country to contend with. I think in very small schools it has the potential to be the death of some golf programs. It also will be tough for coaches in a small school. For me, I coach junior high football and high school boys golf, which means I will have to select one of the two to coach. Overall, the effect of this move won’t be seen until it all plays out.”

Stribe is not the only coach in Jasper County who may have to choose one sport over another.

Collin Harrison is the boys golf coach at PCM and has been a long-time member of the Mustangs’ football coaching staff. And he did not like the IHSAA’s decision.

“In short, I think this is an awful idea for 1A and 2A schools with the only benefit being weather,” Harrison said. “In small schools, football is generally king as far as the numbers of athletes is concerned. Golf relies on dual-sport athletes a lot in small schools and the time it takes to compete at a high level in football makes it much more difficult to be a dual-sport athlete.”

Class 4A golf has been a fall sport for more than 30 years. But a lot of those athletes do not play football or run cross country at that level. And the golf courses are typically bigger, 18 holes and maintained a lot longer through the fall.

These are just a few of the reasons Harrison doesn’t agree with some of the reasons behind the change.

He also doesn’t think moving girls tennis to the fall will help with congestion in the spring because most small schools do not offer tennis as a sanctioned sport anyway.

“Also, they are now pairing what I would call a finesse sport with a physical sport where we are expecting athletes who are going to get beaten up playing football to go play golf as well,” Harrison said. “The idea of practicing is insanely tough. You can’t miss football practices most weeks ... there is too much preparation on a week-to-week basis. So what do you do for golf?

“I think this is a move that was done to cater to the bigger schools to get everyone doing it at the same time. There’s absolutely no reason other than weather that this makes any sense from a logistical standpoint for small schools. This is an example of not thinking about the student-athletes first. We have made spring golf work forever so the excuse of easier on courses and coaches doesn’t make much sense either.”

PCM Activities Director Jeremy Swink is a former high school and college golfer. He has played golf in Iowa in both the fall and the spring and definitely thinks the sport of golf is significantly better to play in the fall.

“You have all summer to prepare, the weather is much better and the courses are in prime golf shape,” Swink said. “The major unknown and question is how it will affect football numbers and those students wanting to participate in golf and football, especially with small schools. That’s what I do not know. Our current varsity boys golf roster has one varsity football player on it, but I know a few years back we had key role players in football also on the varsity golf team.”

School administrators, coaches and parents of the athletes are going to have to be willing to be flexible with kids who want to do both sports, according to Swink.

He also thinks there can be quite a few golf meets scheduled before school even starts. And meets during the school year can be scheduled during the day to accommodate the shared athletes.

“We all know it’s much easier said than done so that will be a challenge ahead of us,” Swink said.

Harrison’s counter to scheduling golf meets during the day is athletes will be required to miss more school than they did before.

Pat Riley has been the head boys golf coach at Newton for two decades. His program played fall golf when the Cardinals were 4A but they most recently moved to the spring when they dropped to 3A.

Riley’s had athletes who have tried to dual sport before. It’s not impossible, but golf requires a certain time commitment that makes it more challenging.

His top golfer heading into next season is a kicker on this year’s Cardinal football team. Jackson Price also could have played soccer in the spring but chose not to.

Price will now be able to play soccer if he chooses to, but he also may have to make a decision between golf and football.

“I’m not happy about it,” Riley said. “We are going to lose some potentially good golfers, including my son Merrick in two years.

“It’s going to kill the likes of Colfax-Mingo and PCM. Even Newton to some degree. It won’t affect 4A players because none of those golfers ever played football.”

If you take football players off this year’s Baxter boys golf team, the Bolts would have had a roster of three.

Several golfers from Newton and Lynnville-Sully also play football for their respective schools. PCM junior Charlie Ford is a varsity golfer who also competes on the Mustangs cross country team.

Colfax-Mingo head boys golf coach Blake Warrick said about 12 of his 18 golfers out this past spring play football in the fall. And five of the seven varsity golfers are football players. One of them also ran cross country.

“It will definitely hurt our numbers because I’m guessing nearly all of those guys would choose football,” Warrick said.

The only area school affected by the tennis move is Newton. The girls will play in the fall and the boys will remain in the spring starting in 2025-26.

And the biggest fall sport affected by the change will be volleyball as a handful of players have participated in both in recent seasons.

Zehr thinks it will be difficult to share between the two sports. He also sees the logic in the decision because most schools have one coach between their two programs and smaller facilities that make it difficult for both teams to schedule practice time.

“The disparity in the haves and have nots in tennis is already an issue,” Zehr said. “I think this might increase that disparity.

“With tennis moving to the fall, I may not even be able to have Friday practices because the athletes will want to attend football games. My Friday practices may have to be Saturday.”

Zehr will miss having the boys tennis team around during the fall season. So many of their practices over the past few seasons have included the boys.

“Change is hard and sometimes the IGHSAU has to make difficult decisions,” Zehr said.