Not surprisingly, bad spring results in calls for later start to season

Matt’s Bleacher Shots

Matt Frey

Without a heavily-controversial issue, like the public/private competitive balance arguments of the past, I had no intention of listening in to the WIAA’s annual meeting Wednesday morning. I had better things to do, like finish off a sports section at deadline.

But through the wonderful world of Twitter, it was learned there was some discussion on season lengths, spring starting dates and game maximums happening. That sounded kind of interesting.

The items were part of the open forum, where school officials simply bring topics to everyone’s attention. Maybe they spur further action, maybe not. In this case, the discussion lasted about five minutes.

While the discussion was short, with the way this spring has gone, it was certainly timely.

It was probably inevitable since this rough spring directly followed the 2021 spring year where weather rarely inter- fered with prep spring sports which, if you recall, were pushed back a few weeks to allow an alternate fall season to happen for schools who felt they couldn’t compete in the fall of 2020 due to the Covid- 19 pandemic. Two speakers (it was hard to pick up names on the live stream) talked about how well last spring went with the later season starts, which of course, also led to later finishes well into June. The last day of the WIAA baseball tournament was July 1. Comments were made that participation in spring sports could decline because it’s simply no fun to be miserable with the conditions a Wisconsin spring can throw at you.

“Last year, our season started later and I think it was a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved,” said Mike Daniels, athletic director at Slinger and the one name I could pick up on the video. “We got the majority of our games in and beyond that, we had very few cancellations. This year, we started our season traditionally, back in March. Golf courses remained closed. Our baseball and softball teams couldn’t play for two, sometimes three weeks. We had miserable experiences sometimes playing in sleet or snow.

“Have we considered following last year’s model or an adaptation of it?,” he continued. “Could we do that moving forward?”

His comments drew a fairly loud applause and WIAA executive director Stephanie Hauser agreed that last year’s format was more widely appreciated than initially thought.

“We go back to a year ago right now and when we announced the new schedule due to the shift because of the pandemic, we got so much pushback in our office about jobs, about vacations, about travel ball. How could you push back the season two weeks into the summer? This will never work,” she said. “Well it did work. We made it work because all of you know we showed an unbelievable resiliency in being flexible and finding a way to get it done.”

Hauser said the conversation about the starting and ending dates for spring is worthwhile to have, but she smartly added that the ideas of condensing the season, reducing the maximum number of games or tightening tournament formats also needs to be part of that conversation. She added that forming a committee to objectively look into these issues is a logical next step.

“This is a topic we will be talking about at area meetings next fall,” she concluded.

You certainly understand the argument that proponents of a later start are making. Spring in Wisconsin is rarely easy to deal with from a scheduling and planning standpoint. This year is lousy, no doubt about it, but it’s also easy to forget the last two springs were pretty darn good. We just couldn’t play. The pandemic ruined what would have been a near perfect 2020 spring sports season. Teams were having contact days in early April last spring in T-shirts and shorts while temperatures approached the 80s.

Conversely, I do remember covering an Antigo/Medford girls soccer game in sleet last May 27.

This will be an interesting conversation to watch, if it does pick up some steam in the next year or so. Anyone living and competing in northern Wisconsin knows the perils of trying to conduct a spring sports season and build a spring schedule. Even in the best of years, there are going to be changes in plans, doubleheaders and rarely will a baseball or softball team reach its 26-game maximum. Some years, it does take too long for the snow pack to melt. This year is even more frustrating because the snow did melt. It’s just too cold with too much wind and too much pesky precipitation.

But having covered spring sports since 1995, without having any data at the tips of my fingers to prove it, I’m thinking things average out over the long term to where games/meets can and do happen by the first week to 10 days of April, even in the north, more often than not. Conditions aren’t always pleasant, but they are playable.

Let’s face it, everyone would rather be out playing in warmer, drier weather. A vote, if it strictly came down to that, would be nearly unanimous. But I do wonder what a student-athlete vote would show, asking if they prefer ending seasons in late May/early June, compared to late June. A statewide coaches’ poll would be interesting too. How long do they want to be working or how does a later spring affect their off-season plans for their programs?

While I can agree that last year’s push into summer succeeded in keeping schedules intact and practices out of gymnasiums and hallways, my humble opinion is that there also is a point in each school year where that school year needs to be done.

Matt Frey is the Sports Editor at The Star News.