First of all, I’d like to offer a sincere wish and hope that all of our local customers and neighbors are all safe and secure and have survived the ravages of the “Sandy” storm…it could have been worse, and yet, there were many scary moments this past week and we lost a few local citizens due to yet another unusual Halloween-time weather event.
Secondly, athletic directors are similar to officials and referees—you don’t notice all the great work they do and only recognize them when things go awry (regardless if it’s their fault or not). I think we are very fortunate here in Eastern Pennsylvania to have some incredibly efficient people running our local sports program, but, and perhaps more importantly, you will frequently hear these men and women giving explanations why things are done “for the kids’ sake.”
The past week was a rather typical one for “AD-s” in that they had numerous events taking place and had to shuffle things around due to bad weather, power outages, schools’ requirements over practice times et al. As usual, they made decisions with the local students safety and well-being being the paramount concern, and took the initiative to reschedule events well in advance of the hurricane hitting the coast, and were also proactive in moving sports events from their regular Friday night and Saturday afternoon slots, to alternate times (including Monday night for HS football).
The PIAA also allowed schools to move games past their standard deadline of when games are to be played. (As luck would have it, the playoffs start next week and schools in the past have had to make decisions to play or have the games not count towards the postseason). Otherwise, because of many schools’ regulation that a team cannot practice when school is closed, some teams would have had to play with no “official” practice time, which includes studying film and injury treatment.
Do you think the local administrators made the right calls with their postponements and, in some circumstances, “unusual” game starting times? Post your comments below or let us know your sports opinions on our next live “RCN Sports Talk” show on Thursdays at 6pm.