Early spring start doesn’t make sense

It was almost humorous, more so perhaps if you weren't standing out there shivering, to observe the bundled patrons/huddled masses here Saturday. Ski jackets, scarves, hoods, knit hats, lined gloves. All we needed, aside from hearing the dulcet tones of Nando Sabbadini on the public address system, were timeouts punctuated by Bing Crosby and Doris Day, singing "Baby, It's Cold Outside."

Yep. Welcome to the spring sports season in Connecticut. A fellow with less of a filter would call it "hell," but then, while Lucifer may be no barrel of laughs, at least it's warm down there.

But this? This was a girls' lacrosse endeavor, Waterford at Stonington. Gametime temperature: Around 40 degrees. Winds not exactly light and variable. All begging the question: Why are we out here?

Parental love knows no bounds, but if a parent ever wanted to use this as leverage, well, no argument from this corner.

Kind of like: "I froze my assets off out there the other day and you behave ... like this?"

So mind your manners, kiddies. Your moms and dads might get a bit irritable at games sometimes, but the very idea they're out there in weather cold enough to hang meat off the goalposts suggests they love you lots.

OK. So none of us are God and thus, remain powerless against nature, who can sure be a Mother sometimes. We can't change the weather. But I wonder if we'd ever consider, here in the land of steady habits, pushing back the spring sports calendar a week (or two), to allow more kids the opportunity to play more games in more favorable conditions.

Traditionally, high school championship weekend runs on the second weekend in June here in Connecticut. Here is a modest proposal to move it to the third weekend, thus allowing practice to begin a week later and for regular-season games to begin a week later.

True enough, this past week's weather was brutal for February, let alone early April. And no matter when we started the spring season, our perch here in New England means we shouldn't send our cold-weather clothing to the back of the closet for a while.

However, by starting a week later, we'd eventually play more games in May and early June, where, at least theoretically, watching wouldn't require long underwear.

Our high school sports calendar is peculiar on its face. Mostly because it is completely hijacked by Thanksgiving Day football. The fall season, for every sport except football, finishes the third weekend in November. It provides the kids some rest and recovery time after their fall sport in preparation for winter.

Football, however, doesn't end until the second weekend in December because the regular season cannot end until Thanksgiving. Tradition and all that. Football players who make the state championship game get a day or two before they jump into a winter sport, whose practices began around 10 days earlier.

Think they're ready for that physically or emotionally?

If we ever got creative here and simply ended the practice of Thanksgiving football, the playoffs would begin earlier and the overall sports calendar would gain more flexibility. No more cramming games into tighter parameters.

Another example: The Waterford basketball kids spent Sunday, March 18 celebrating a state championship. Baseball practice began March 19 because the spring season only has so many days and must end the second weekend in June.

Anyone think those basketball kids, in one day, were ready for another sport in 38-degree weather?

Now I get that this argument is easily lost on the folks who recall the days they were 17, walking to school in 10 feet of snow, killing the Abominable Snowman with their looseleaf notebooks. Nice story. Tell that to a guy in a bar. I'm talking about being a little more practical here about the games our kids play.

Finally, a quick shout out to Waterford senior Kaylee Swansen, who played Saturday's game with a sleeveless top and kilt (could have been shorts). And they call football players tough? I was shivering in the (relatively) comfortable press box gulping coffee.

I'd hire that kid for any job she ever wanted. That kind of mental toughness is rare.

Meantime, let's think about altering our state sports calendar.

T.S. Eliot didn't write "April is the cruelest month" for nothing, you know.