That's one spring. How do other northern states do it? Why can't baseball start in April?
Level the playing field in HS athletics
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That's one spring. How do other northern states do it? Why can't baseball start in April?
If you take the top 6 I posted...3 of them already play other sports in 4A conferences, a 4th could if they wanted, and one is basically a suburb of a 4A metro. Decorah is the only one that might have a beef.
Golf, soccer, track and baseball/softball all at the same time (plus tennis, for those who offer it)? Good luck finding enough bodies if you aren't a 4A or high 3A school.
True, but the top 3A teams would smoke over half of the 4A field. It's that top tier of 4A where there is a huge gap.
Track can shorten their season to end in early May. A lot of small schools don't even have soccer or Tennis. Golf?
Except there were a bunch of issues just last spring for Midwestern states during spring season. Why does Iowa need to move baseball/softball to spring?
There are schools that have golf in the Bluegrass Conference. Yes, the Bluegrass.
A lot of kids don't want to spend their entire summer playing baseball. A lot of kids get summer jobs, go on long trips, play in leagues, or go to camps for other sports, hang out at the lake and chase girls, etc. A lot of the top athletes in our district stop playing baseball after 8th/9th grade due to those reasons.
How many states play H.S. baseball in the summer?
You only need one or two kids to have a golf team. They don't even need to be good at golf.
As Kobe Bryant said AAU athletics is killing high school sports
The new/incoming IHSAA director is the former A.D. at Xavier.
Then those kids don't have to go out for baseball or softball. You have your whole life to go to the lake, work, or chase girls. It's about priorities. There were several kids who quit summer sports to do those things when I was growing up and have later stated they wished they had stuck with it. I see a few dads living through their kids because of it.
Iowa is the only state that has summer baseball.
There are more 1A and 2A schools starting soccer (even as co-op programs) every year.
Track ends in mid-May.
The soccer regular season ends in mid-May.
Baseball/softball practices start around May 1, but the first games aren't until after track and soccer are over. That still allows for kids to do both, if they want.
Minnesota limits their spring baseball season to 20 games. Wisconsin allows 26. South Dakota doesn't even offer baseball in high school.
1A Newman just went extra innings with mason city and mason city usually has solid teams.
Welp...there you have it. Might as well shut this thread down. Nothing is changing. It's a shame because all over the country you see states doing things to at least limit abuses and create better competition among schools. In Iowa, it's just a free for all.
My guess would be participation numbers. I just don't see how the smaller districts would be able to support track, baseball, and golf at the same time.
You need four students to be able to post a team score in golf, Seymour, Moravia and Mormon Trail all have golf teams this past year. In fact one gal from Seymour placed in the regional and advanced to sub state play.
Spring baseball/softball only works if you have a strong AAU program for the kids to play after their spring season is over. There is nothing wrong with having summer softball/baseball. But we did have kids doing track and golf, and then going to the summer sports to practice when their first practice was over.
Spring baseball/softball only works if you have a strong AAU program for the kids to play after their spring season is over. There is nothing wrong with having summer softball/baseball. But we did have kids doing track and golf, and then going to the summer sports to practice when their first practice was over.
LOL just when you thought the IHSAA couldn't get any more crooked...
I always found it amazing how few kids were still playing by the time they were seniors.
In all seriousness though, the IHSAA needs to shorten the baseball and softball seasons. Softball especially needs to cap the number of games you can play, some teams play in tournaments every weekend.
I would agree the season could be shortened. In some cases there is not a lot of time between the end of baseball and the start of football camp.
