For ADs, woes pile up with winter’s snows

Adjusting winter sports schedules has become the main game.

By JOE SCALZO

Vindicator sports staff

At 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Warren Harding athletic director Paul Trina got word that the Mahoning Valley’s latest snowstorm would force the school to cancel its sporting events.

That meant Tuesday’s varsity boys basketball game at East was off, but it also meant four middle school games were off, too.

Oh, and the buses were ready to leave in about 30 minutes, so time was of the essence.

“When things happen at the last minute,” Trina said, “it becomes a real challenge.”

Welcome to Winter 2010, which is starting to look more like a spring sports season as lousy weather forces area schools to cram a whole bunch of postponements into an increasingly small window before the postseason.

“I don’t remember ever going through something like this,” Boardman athletic director Dave Smercansky said. “I don’t even recall having one makeup game in the winter in the eight years I’ve been doing this.”

The real trouble started with last Friday’s blizzard, which came on so unexpectedly strong that most area schools opted to play their boys basketball games.

Saturday’s games, however, were wiped out and Tuesday’s blizzard only complicated things further.

More than a dozen games in the Valley were canceled on Tuesday and just about every game on Wednesday. If the weather gets any worse, some area athletic directors will start to wonder if, not when, those games will be made up.

“It’s a little bit tougher during winter months because basketball players aren’t conditioned to play two games back-to-back,” Smercansky said. “That makes it tougher because there are fewer dates available.

“In baseball and softball, they’ll play regular season games during the playoffs, but in basketball that’s an uncommon practice.”

Varsity games — particularly conference games — are a priority when it comes to rescheduling, which sometimes means lower level teams play fewer games.

“Unfortunately, a lot of times, the freshmen get the short end of the stick,” Smercansky said.

Because the Spartans play in the Canton-based Federal League, bad weather takes on even more importance. Last Friday’s blizzard came too late to cancel Boardman’s game at Uniontown Lake, so the Spartans didn’t get back home until around 12:30 a.m.

“The travel complicates things a little bit,” Smercansky said.

Harding doesn’t play in a conference this season — the Raiders left the Steel Valley Conference after last season and will join the Lake Erie League next fall — so it always has the option of simply not playing the game, provided the other team agrees.

But if the game was at home, cancellation means a loss of revenue, particularly since Harding’s boys team is so successful. And even if the game does get rescheduled, it’s unlikely the new date will draw the same crowd.

“Nine times out of 10, you’re not going to make as much money on the rescheduled game,” Trina said. “You have to rely on good communication getting out through the media and you also have to rely on people paying attention to that communication.”

Harding rescheduled Tuesday’s game with East for Feb. 25 — a Thursday and a non-traditional weeknight for boys basketball. But since it was the last weekend of the regular season, and since Trina had already moved a postponed game with Mansfield Sr. to Feb. 26, it was the best he could do.

“Cancellations early in the year are a lot easier to make up than late,” Trina said. “When you get to that late window, the opportunity to find a common date becomes more difficult.”

Of course, rescheduling is the second priority whenever a game gets postponed. The first priority is getting the word out that the original game was canceled.

That’s hard enough when school is in session. When it’s not, it becomes a logistical nightmare.

The contact list includes coaches, maintenance workers, bus drivers, principals, cheerleaders (and their advisors), trainers, officials, game workers, media outlets and ... well, there’s always someone you forget.

“Inevitably, you miss someone,” Trina said. “There’s a lot of frustration when something gets canceled.”

scalzo@vindy.com