The Front Row with MARK NELKE April 28, 2011

Like any good sports fan, Todd Gilkey had grown accustomed to reaching for the sports section first thing in the morning.

But in the midst of this soggy, snowy, slushy spring, the Coeur d'Alene High athletic director now finds himself turning to another section first.

"Every day I wake up and read the newspaper and see what the weather is like," Gilkey said, "and it hasn't been good."

No, it hasn't.

This spring's soggy, chilly weather had wreaked havoc with high school schedules of teams in North Idaho and beyond. It used to be we would check to see if a game had been postponed due to rain. These days, it's easier just to confirm that teams are actually going to play that day.

"In my 12 years (as an AD) I've never seen anything like this," Gilkey said. "It's getting frustrating. Kids want to play, and we're running out of dates."

The beginning of the state-qualifying regional tournaments for 5A and 4A baseball and softball teams are less than two weeks away, and teams still have plenty of league games to squeeze in before then - if they can.

"This is as bad as it's been," said Craig Christensen, in his 16th year as an athletic director - the last nine at Post Falls. "This is just relentless - not only the rain, but the temperatures. Even when we do get a game in, the kids are out there freezing."

TRUE DAT. Until last Sunday, the temperatures hadn't risen above 60 degrees since last October. Most events this spring have been held in temperatures in the 40s - making a day in the 50s seem like a heat wave.

In 5A baseball, Coeur d'Alene still has six games remaining - including three with Post Falls and one with Lake City. Lake City has five left, including two each with Post Falls and Lewiston. Post Falls, which had its first six outings - four single games and two doubleheaders - postponed, has to squeeze in two games with Lake City in addition to the three with Coeur d'Alene.

In 4A Lakeland, rained/snowed out on five of its first seven dates, still has doubleheaders left with Moscow and Sandpoint.

At least that’s what it looks like on the paper copies of schedules we have in our office, some of which are almost indecipherable with all the games marked “ppd,” and the makeup games scribbled in somewhere between the regularly scheduled games.

In the 3A Intermountain League, they resorted to tripleheaders and prayed for decent weather so they could try to squeeze in all the league games.

In softball, Coeur d’Alene still has half of its 12 5A IEL games to play, including three with Post Falls. Lake City has been rained out three times trying to play Post Falls.

Lakeland is done playing Moscow in league play, but still has a pair of doubleheaders to play against Sandpoint.

SOME FIELDS drain better than others. Coeur d’Alene High moved some of its softball games to Finucane Park in Hayden, and has since been able to work on improving its own field. Timberlake has hosted a softball tournament and a single game that were both originally scheduled to be played elsewhere.

“At first I consulted with our coaches on the condition of the field in making the call, but this spring has made me an expert on unplayable field conditions,” Timberlake athletic director Tim Cronnelly said.

ADs and/or coaches make the call on game day, keeping in mind how far the visiting team is traveling — if Lewiston or Moscow is headed this way, for instance, the schools will make that call earlier, so teams don’t waste a bus trip north only to turn around and head home.

“You get to be an amateur weatherman, looking at the weather,” Christensen said. “You don’t want them driving up from Lewiston and Moscow and not be able to play.”

Christensen said there may have been a few times in the past when he has made the call early in the day to postpone a game — only to see the skies clear and the sun shining at game time. But not this year. When it rains, it seemingly pours.

The ADs we talked to said with all the people they have to contact when an event is rescheduled, they may have forgotten a ticket taker or two. But they said they’ve never had the horror of looking out the window and seeing the visiting bus show up when it wasn’t supposed to, or seeing a bus show up to take their team to a game that had been postponed hours earlier.

ADs said they will try to play all the league games, if possible — at least as long as they affect seeding for regionals and districts. If not, winning percentage might have to be used for seeding.

A victim of rescheduling is often the junior varsity or freshman team. Sometimes there aren’t enough fields to make up the varsity and JV and freshman games, so the varsity games take precedence.

That’s not the ideal solution, but likely the only one.

“A couple weeks of sunshine would solve a lot of problems,” Cronnelly said.

But then he added, “We’ve been saying that for almost two months now.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via e-mail at [email protected].