The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
In bad weather, safety shouldn’t take back seat
During the spring sports season, athletes, coaches, media and fans always know to brace for Mother Nature not cooperating.
Generally, we can tolerate postponements and cancellations during the regular season. Not a big deal. But it’s especially irritating once the postseason rolls around. Now that is a big deal.
For baseball and softball, even a drizzle will get a game moved to a different day and time. It’s obviously what’s best for the field and athletes, to keep them safe and have them duke it out on an even playing field.
Let’s take a look at another spring sport — track and field.
You will almost never see a postseason track meet get postponed because of heavy rain. Whenever there’s lightning in the area, OHSAA rules demand the meet to get delayed for a half-hour. Then the meet continues.
Over the past couple of weeks, the postseason meets I’ve been to among Amherst, Orrville and Lexington, the weather has been awful. There were moments where I couldn’t even see a race because of how bad the rain was pouring down.
I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for the athletes.
Let’s take Lorain junior and reigning state champion Zion Cross. He made his season debut in the 100-meter dash at the D-I Amherst district in downpour and ugly weather. He mentioned after his race how much he hates running in conditions like that.
Most sprinters, if you ask them, would love 90-degree weather.
Amherst sprinter Taylor Hooks, a state qualifier in her individual events in the 100 and 200, mentioned after her district race how her vision was impeded because of the rain.
On May 26 at the Amherst Regional, we finally caught a break and got great weather. Amherst coach Rob Glatz came up to me and said how the athletes deserve to finally have fair weather conditions.
I then couldn’t help but think to myself how we at times get robbed of not seeing these athletes put their best foot forward in the most critical times of the year. More important, I thought about how these athletes jeopardize their health in these conditions.
At a warm district meet at Amherst last year, the top two times ran sub-11 times in the boys 100-meter dash race. This year, in bad conditions, the top four finishes didn’t run a sub11 time.
How about the girls 200-meter dash? The top seven times last year were in the 25- to 26-second range. This year, only Hooks ran in the 26-second range, while the next four spots were in the 27s.
It must be heartbreaking for an athlete to work their tails off all season, only to have their times get ruined because of mother nature. Or even worse, someone might slip and fall — and have their dreams of punching their ticket to Columbus get shattered.
Let’s look at a field event like the pole vault. Heavy downpours can pose a serious threat to these athletes — even life threatening. A pole vaulter’s hand can slip off the pole and do serious damage. I understand precautions are being taken for this, such as having towels at hand to dry off the pole. But I’m also not complaining about rain drizzle. I’m talking about heavy downpours where having a towel almost becomes useless.
I get how it can be a pain to move a track meet, especially if you have more than 30 schools involved. Or if it’s the state meet. Meet officials don’t want to come back another day. Same goes for the teams. It becomes much more complicated than a baseball or softball game.
But if player safety is always No. 1, then track and field shouldn’t take exception. Do we have to wait until something awful happens before deciding to do so?
Heavy rain is in the forecast this weekend in Columbus for the state track & field meets on June 2-3. The track meet will undoubtedly still run. I just hope no injuries occur because of it.