Heavy Snowfall a Headache for Area AD's

Snow. It is a fact of life for New Englanders.

We see it every year, in varying degrees. We should be used to it by now. Nonetheless, every winter it’s often like we are encountering it for the first time.

Everything grinds to, not so much a halt, but a slow, slow crawl. It snarls up traffic all over the city, disrupts everyone’s commute and forces business and schools to close or open late—not to mention posing a significant safety concern.

Despite being played indoors, high school winter sports are far from immune to the effects of snowstorms and inclement weather. 

When school doesn’t open, practices aren’t held and games aren’t played. That means athletic directors and coaches must scramble to fit makeup games and extra practices into an already tight schedule, while still making sure that the season ends by the date mandated by the MIAA.

For the athletic directors of the Greater Boston League, despite being aided by the close proximity of all the member schools to each other, a winter like the one we are currently mired in presents a whole slew of logistical challenges they must overcome.

With a major storm hitting the region seemingly every week during the month of January, the 2010–2011 winter sports season has been an especially tough one for area athletic director’s.

“It’s awful,” said Malden High Athletic Director Dan Keefe about the headaches caused by all the snow. “The thing that makes it even more of a hassle with the major sports is that everybody plays 20 games, so you don’t have all that many openings in your schedule.”

As of the February 1–2 storm, Boston has been the involuntary recipient of over 67 inches of snow this winter, a total that ranks among the highest ever recorded for the area. 

“We’ve had more closings this year than any year I’ve been in this position,” said Somerville High Athletic Director Nicole Viele. “To be honest with you, it’s kind of part of the job. I mean, we’re in New England...right now, we’re in conference play and the AD’s in the GBL have been awesome about communicating.”

That equation leads to scheduling makeup games wherever they can be fit in, often leaving a team that may not have been able to practice regularly staring at the prospect of playing as many as four games in a seven day span. As will be the case this week for Malden’s girls basketball team.

While always a wild card that defies accurate prediction, the consensus on rough weather like this seems to be that the best defense is a good offense.

“I try to be proactive as much as I can,” said Keefe. “It’s kind of rolling the dice...we’ve been pretty good with these snowstorms because the weathermen have been pretty accurate, but you don’t want to jump the gun, in case they blow the forecast.”

According to Viele, she began looking at possible open dates lasy Monday in anticipation of the storm.

“We knew the storm was coming, so we started looking on Monday for days to reschedule,” she said. “The communication among the (GBL) AD’s has been awesome. I think we’re all in the same boat and we’re just trying to work together and keep things moving as quickly as possible.”

While sometimes GBL schools can still hold conference games when the weather gets bad because of the short distances between each facility, non-league games—of which there are many, since it is a five-team league—are tough to play as scheduled during storms, because of the distances that must be travelled. The safety of student-athletes is the primary concern, and always the deciding factor when determining whether or not to play scheduled games in bad weather conditions.

“The biggest thing we take into consideration is the safety, especially if we’re traveling,” said Keefe. “If we’re playing a non-league game, even if we’re hosting it, you’re better off canceling it, because you’d rather be safe than sorry.”

Ultimately, although time consuming, rescheduling games is a far better option than putting anyone at risk. While still a hassle, the internet age allows for issues such as this to handled much quicker and easier than in the past.

“Is it slightly time consuming? Absolutely,” said Viele. “But in this day and age, with email, you can shoot an email out to all the coaches, all the contest management workers, the officials, and you get it done in one shot, instead of having to be on the phone for several hours.

“Luckily for me,” she added. “Even though we’ve had all these snow storms, we’ve been able to find makeup games that haven’t compromised our students health and well-being.”