March 24, 2008                        Check Out previous Blogs

Spring sports jump on us in a hurry....too soon ?....too long ??...not enough games ? ....  weather issues often dictate a schedule... read on...

Even prior to the final four basketball teams hosting their award nights, the spring sports season raised its curtain on March 17. Some thoughts about MO spring sports season and its scheduling.

Some coaches schedule several games early in season. Some hope to throw their players into competition early to get a better gauge on their ability at the Varsity High School level. This could provide the coach with an early evaluation and the players with a "feel" for personal areas of improvement needed to succeed at this level.  Some coaches figure that it's a win-win, if it gets postponed, they still have most of the season to reschedule. If they play, some feel that they are ahead in the game. Others just feel that practice has limited value after several consecutive days of workouts and just want to play.

Some coaches, with limited strong pitching, want to spread out the games to provide them a chance to use their premier pitchers more frequently.

Some hold back from scheduling games until April or so. They feel that the March games are often played at temperatures not conducive to playing a "typical" game of that sport. Or, they feel that playing in these colder days that injuries could occur more frequently (especially to pitchers). Some coaches feel that they want to back-load the schedule so that their team will be playing every day leading up to district competition.  Other coaches determine that they would rather practice prior to games to set up their squad in a more set fashion than practice frequently after the games begin. Some feel that their squad will benefit from early season frustration of rain outs, (snow outs), cold days.

The wild card in all this planning is the weather. Who can really tell when the inclement weather will arrive ? If we could make that determination, we'd all be rich.

Personally, I always preferred holding off until April. I always preferred working with my squad in pre-season on many different facets of the game. I found that once the curtain went up, some of the bench players lost their zeal for practice and could contaminate productive practices. I also wanted to bring pitchers and pitch counts along through practice. I realize that pitchers now often throw all year long but I always felt that this season was different than throwing in the winter as one could work on developing new pitches. I wanted control within the strike zone, not just strikes. I also felt that a coach could really work on the finer parts of the team and individual play (bunting, bunt defense, base running). I personally think that base running, which is very hard to teach due to the many changing circumstances (score, count, outs), requires much practice. It's easy to push it aside. The elite teams are usually great base running teams and often win many close games due to getting an extra base here or there and most of all, NOT running into unnecessary outs. I also like to have my teams playing very often in May.  I found our defense improved with this regular play, pitchers control sharpened, batters reached their highest plateau of performance by playing frequently.

Granted most of my thoughts center around baseball (my own experience), but I feel that most spring sports probably face basically the same issues with their sport. Running track as a high school student wasn't much fun for me running into a brisk wind while the temp was way down. Girls Soccer may be the most adaptable to the milder temperatures. I've seen this sport played in the middle of winter (much less mild spring temps) and still be played at a high level. Of course boys volleyball doesn't have the weather concerns but does face the factors of peaking at the right time; being totally prepared for the season, injuries around district time, etc.

It is common for many players, in this era, to concentrate on just one sport. Thus, they often compete in that sport year round. That pushes the high school team down the road much quicker in practice since the skills of these year long players, haven't eroded as much and may have actually increased their skills since the previous year.  These players are ALWAYS anxious to compete in  early season games since they've been practicing for several months. Their impact on HS scheduling has been to play the games earlier. So, in my opinion, the early season games often demonstrate a) Which team has the most year-round players ?  b) Which team has the best indoor facilities to accommodate their spring programs.

One of the "plus" sides of early season games is the "win" factor. By winning most (or all) of early season games, a coach can a) Get his team to practice harder between games; b) develop a positive attitude towards winning; c) much better team morale; d) Keep team motivated as the senior activities approach (always a challenge for spring sport coaches); e) Seems to make players more willing to do the "small" parts of the game that lead to more wins down the road. When a team loses many (or all) early season games, the opposite of most points above occur.

www.Prepcasts.com  will begin our spring sports schedule this week with baseball, track, boys volleyball.  Check our current schedule -- we'll keep you entertained with HS sports all year long !

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