The future of high school lacrosse in Bloomington-Normal is at a crossroads following the IHSA’s decision to ban large-scale cooperative teams from the postseason, report Ayushi Patel and Makinzee Boyer in the student newspaper at Normal Community West High School in Illinois.
In December 2025, the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) member schools approved a series of major by-law amendments, including a significant change to By-law 2.030, referred to as Proposal 5 during the voting process. This new ruling, set to impact the 2026-2027 school year, stipulates that cooperative sports teams formed by two or more schools with a combined enrollment of 3,500 or more students are no longer eligible to compete for IHSA State Series team awards or postseason titles.
The measure passed with broad support from member schools to preserve competitive equity. The IHSA’s rationale is to prevent the formation of “super teams” in large metropolitan areas, where multiple high-enrollment schools might combine their top athletes to create a roster that smaller, single-school programs cannot reasonably compete with. Although these co-ops can still play regular-season games, they are effectively barred from the “road to state.”
Local Impact
The ruling specifically targets co-ops based solely on enrollment at member schools. For the lacrosse program in Bloomington-Normal, which brings together athletes from Normal Community, Normal West, and Bloomington High Schools, this threshold means their championship dreams will be sidelined starting in 2027 unless the program is restructured.
Administrators are now faced with a difficult choice: remain a unified co-op and accept a “regular season only” schedule or dissolve the partnership to form individual school teams.
While splitting would restore playoff eligibility, coaches warn that the move could devastate a developing sport like lacrosse, which currently relies on shared resources, facilities, and a combined player pool to remain viable. Normal West Athletic Director Wes Temples noted that while the season would still happen, losing the “competitive spark” of a state title run could drive athletes toward other varsity sports.
Current underclassmen will likely feel the impact most acutely, as they’ll be seniors when the rule takes effect. Beyond the loss of trophies, coaches are concerned that the ruling treats varsity lacrosse more like a “club sport,” potentially reducing participation and slowing the game’s growth in downstate Illinois. As district leaders evaluate the 2027 transition, the focus remains on whether “competitive balance” for the state is worth the potential loss of local opportunity.
