Sports View 05/01/2008

Six-week check up
It’s been about six weeks since the final season of high school sports re-alignment has been phased in across the state. Aside from the winter season, when perhaps the most contentious change happened with the boys and girls varsities both playing basketball in the same season, the spring was anticipated to wreak havoc across the sports.
Soccer players chose to abandon tennis, baseball players dropped golf, and myriad other scenarios played out, but as far as wreaking havoc, I don’t think so. Teams have had to reshuffle lineups, and to the surprise of many, have done quite well, thank you very much. JV players, who perhaps would not have had a chance until next season, have even gotten to see starting time on the mounds, at the plate and on the soccer fields. Others, willing and allowed to, are playing multiple sports, also very successfully. It’s not the best situation, but as long as coaches are willing to have the spirit of cooperation, the kids can excel at sports that they enjoyed in separate seasons.
Weather will always be a problem, be it during the spring or fall. Certainly the boys’ golf teams already have seen their fair share of brutal driving winds and rain. Their female counterparts, accustomed to that in the spring, adjusted just as the boys will to the same driving winds, sleet and snow that will hit them come next fall season.
One benefit of the switch in seasons, although some coaches don’t see it so much as a benefit, has been a large crowd of kids making the varsity. Some tennis teams have seen resurgence, with nearly two dozen athletes ready to swing the racket. Others, without a sport to play in the spring, have picked up golf clubs and are making their own way. Certainly, they are all joined with just as many newcomers, many who have never touched a club or racket until this season, but a shored-up team is strong at the core, despite its shortcomings, and often means no forfeits and a building base for the future.
Just don’t call it a rebuilding year. Coaches hate that term to the point of nausea. They prefer to call the teams young and exuberant, boding well for the future of the program, or fresh and talented, yet untested. However they want to spin that, all the drama, angst and sour attitudes that came with the switch in seasons for the most part has been for naught.
Now that’s not to say that everything is a bed of roses, because the thorny vines of change are still wrapped around the ankles of many. Those young untested fresh faces are getting a trial by fire experience at the varsity level and below, facing some veteran squads that are ruthless and could care less about their troubles. League titles are on the line, and in their opinion, if you can’t hang with the big dogs, stay on the porch.
As we’ve been out and about shooting the games day to day, there doesn’t appear to be much of a change at first glance. Kids are going at it no holds barred, smashing forehands, grinding out line drives and crashing into one another with the full abandon of football players, but without the benefit of pads.
Have you ever watched a girls’ soccer game? The next fool that tells me that the girls don’t play as hard as the boys will be sentenced to sit on the sidelines and note every collision and the end result. Don’t play hard? Are you kidding me?! Ouch!
Change is hard. No one really ever embraces it, but for those willing to accept the inevitable, as many of the kids seemed to have, great promise and opportunities lie well within grasp. Bravo. Now that the change of seasons has come full circle, the nagging problems can be addressed to make next year even better.