There are a number of things that local high school coaches have to deal with that do not normally affect their sport at higher levels and one of them is dealing with cancellations, or to be more exact postponements.
There are just times when road conditions, or as in the case of the past several days, extremely cold temperatures, lead to the postponement of games. That is just a fact that is dictated by winter in Ohio.
You are saying, that is pretty obvious, there must be more to this story.
Yes, you are a perceptive reader.
I agree with everything stated above, but what I don’t necessarily agree with is some schools, in fact many, have adopted the policy that when there is there is no school then there is no practice.
Let’s investigate why there is no school to begin with and how that affects other activities associated with the school, in this case athletics.
Normally what happens is around four in the morning the district superintendent, transportation director, or someone assigned to the task, gets in their vehicle and checks roads in the district and has conversations with personnel that work the roads and a decision is made. Sometimes that results in canceling school for the day or going on some delay plan.
Again I support that plan, but the next step is where I question attitudes.
In many districts all games and practices are cancelled for the day. Why? Why should road conditions that affect bus transportation in the morning hours to school affect something that takes place eight to ten hours later? Does someone determine that runways at Port Columbus are difficult to land planes at four in the morning, so flights are cancelled for the rest of the day? Geez, I hope not.
A decision on whether or not practice is cancelled should lie in the hands of the coach. If that person is not capable of making a good decision in that regard then he or she probably shouldn’t be coach in the first place. If I want to have practice at four in the afternoon after it has not been snowing for six hours I should have that option.
Games are a slightly different story because they affect many more people than the 10-12 players and coaches per squad. One of the teams is always traveling, sometimes a good distance, to the game, plus there are fans that want to see the game and bad road conditions affect the gate. That decision should be left up to the athletic director.
However, I will contend I am also against the policy that anytime there is no school there should be no games. Again, the weather in Ohio quickly changes.
I have heard so many times that education should come first. I agree, however, if having the games is of so little importance than why do we have them to begin with?
All I am asking is to give the power and the trust to the people that should have it.
After years of toil and sweat behind radio station microphones, longtime broadcaster, Jeff Swank joined the new generation of sports followers on the web.
Swank launched his internet radio station with nothing more than some wire, a box with some knobs and switches, and an itch to do much more than just scratch the surface of everything sports.
Richland Source is proud to introduce Jeff as a writer focused on high school sports. He will contribute a weekly column and analysis of a featured game of the week from one of our area high schools.
In addition to his work at Richland Source, Jeff provides complete high school sports coverage for over 70 Ohio schools at his web site, http://www.swankonsports.net76.net/.