SCHEDULING
The AISA has selected April 11, 2012 as the day set for scheduling all competitive sports for the next two years. As you have heard from me before, scheduling for two years at a time is just close to a living nightmare. We are experiencing that right now in softball and baseball. We are currently in year two of a very brutal and time consuming schedule. If you haven’t noticed we are playing in four tournaments on the weekends (all in March) while spending Monday through Thursday playing a regular season schedule. The result will be about 32 baseball games and 29 softball games.
That kind of schedule is brutal on academics and the players. It is also brutal if you do not have the players (pitchers especially) to compete in that many games. If our spring programs were more developed that many games may not be a huge issue but the real issue is the way they were scheduled.
By the time we reach April 11th we would have met with the church and school administration and crossed out any potential conflicts for the next two years. As coaches, we will then look at our talent level, logistics, time away from school and required practice time (practice time needed to help us compete) in coming up with the best schedule possible.
Look for baseball and softball to play a more manageable schedule with one, maybe two, tournaments during the season but spaced out. We would definitely like to continue to host one and travel to one other tournament.
The good thing about the scheduling meeting this time around is the experience we have on our coaching staff. Pray for us as we seek for balance in scheduling our athletic games.