JJ SAYS: Kick and shiver

I was sitting warm and dry in the Casa Grande High School gym last week when two Casa Grande students, wearing shorts and jerseys, skidded into the building shivering and dripping water. The girls arrived at halftime soaked and shaking, seeking shelter and towels.

By the time they had sufficiently warmed and dried, it took several minutes to mop the puddles from the gym floor so the basketball contest could continue.

The scene again awakened in me doubts about the wisdom of playing soccer as a winter sport.

I know all the reasons the decision was made. The biggest is that, with soccer as a fall sport, young athletes too often had to make a choice between playing club soccer or high school soccer. Club soccer was often the choice, offering a better opportunity for the best players to be previewed for college recruiters.

I know of at least one high school coach who was thinking seriously about retiring if the season switch hadn’t been made. He was just tired of losing too many good players to club teams and having others who only showed up part time for practices and even games because of club commitments.

By following the example set by Southern California schools, NorCal champions are now eligible for state playoffs.

On the boys side, the switch to winter also takes away the conflict between soccer and football, although it does set up a girls conflict between soccer and basketball.

All are legitimate reasons high school soccer is now a winter sport in the North Bay and Wine Valley Athletic leagues.

My objection is the weather. Granted, California in general, and the North Bay in particular, doesn’t have the extreme winters that plague people in other parts of the country. We don’t have temperatures that begin south of zero. We don’t have tornadoes that take the roofs off schools. We don’t have snow days.

Of course Midwest schools don’t have smoke days, but that is a story for a different time.

What we do have is cold, wet weather that allows teams to play on today’s new synthetic turf, but makes playing uncomfortable, and that is an understatement.

We were fortunate this season to have no really wet football nights and only a couple where the cold tilted out of uncomfortable into unbearable.

By contrast, almost every soccer match begins at miserable and transitions into too cold to contemplate. And remember, soccer is played in shorts.

I’m not at all suggesting that we go back to fall soccer, but I am recommending a special tribute to the boys and girls who, at least twice a week, can look forward to shaking and shivering for the sake of playing a game they love.

Most schools have made some concessions to the chill, starting games at 6 p.m. Still, 6 o’clock right now is almost full dark and temperatures are already diving.

How about taking things one step farther, starting games at 4 p.m. or even 3:30 p.m.

You would still have the rain, but at least there wouldn’t be frost on the field when the games started.

(Contact John Jackson at johnie.jackson@arguscourier.com)