This spring sports season, many games, practices and meets have been cancelled due to winter-like weather, affecting the athletes, coaches and scheduling.

While co-athletic director Mr. John Fischl was unable to give an estimate of how many events have been canceled, he expressed the historic nature of this season so far: “This is the only season in the past 10 years where [there has been] the snow, ice, and windchill that has resulted in cancelled practices and contests,” he stated.

Cancellations often occur during the spring season, but usually due to thunderstorms and/or heavy rain, as reported by Mr. Fischl. Girls track and field head coach Mr. Tom Bizosky agreed, claiming this is the worst weather during a spring season in his 20 years as a coach.

According to Mr. Fischl, there is a lot of pressure to not only reschedule the canceled events but to arrange them at the right time: “We always get feedback on people giving us their thoughts on cancelled contests, and [if we’re] going to make them up, [but] there’s a big impact on putting a bunch of contests in a week.” He added that the athletic directors generally meet with the coaches to determine whether or not a practice is cancelled.

Consequences of the crammed contests include late nights for athletes for days on end, he added.

Though most games and meets tend to be given another date, that doesn’t mean coaches don’t have to make drastic changes to their lineup, workouts and more.

“I’ve never had to re-adjust so many different things this late into the season,” said Mr. Bizosky.

Mr. Bizosky expressed that while he hasn’t cancelled practices this season, he now is sending only non-varsity athletes to certain competitions.

“The last conference meet that we’re going to run will just be lower-level competitors. We’re not running our varsity athletes because they will be running at Sectionals days after that, and you can’t run two meets in a row,” he stated. Before the cancellations, there would have been enough time between conference and Sectionals for the varsity athletes to attend both.

Track and field had four invitationals scheduled this season, two of which were cancelled. In an attempt to cram the cancelled meets, Mr. Christopher Davis, assistant athletic director and P.E. teacher, said that “the next couple weeks are jam-packed with stuff.”

Mr. Fischl expressed that the most difficult spring sport to accommodate in terms of practice space when outside isn’t available is tennis because there is no indoor space for it. For nearly all other sports, there are indoor options where the athletes can practice, like Slammers Training Academy in Lake Forest for the baseball and softball teams. Soccer players can head to the Libertyville Sports Complex to play indoors, although space isn’t always available and there are limitations to practicing on the turf, including inability to practice corner kicks and other plays.

For tennis and track and field invitationals, rescheduling is unlikely unless there was an alternate date prior to the cancellation, according to Mr. Davis. For example, the Lake County Invite was scheduled on a Thursday, so it could have been moved back, if necessary. The rest of track and field cancellations, he said, have been rescheduled.

Mr. Fischl stated that though they are scrambling to reschedule meets and contests, the Illinois High School Association will not allow sports seasons to go past their final contests, considering they plan the dates years in advance.

“The seasons will come to an end as most tournaments begin, no matter what the weather is,” Mr. Fischl said. “There’s no exception for that.”