Commentary: Mother Nature not cooperating with WIAA spring sports schedule

Mother Nature is laughing this week.

Not that this week is any different than this week last year. Or the year before that.

The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association deems this week to be the official start of the spring sports season. Baseball teams can begin to practice. Boys soccer begins to practice. Track and field begins practice. Golf and tennis, well, you know.

And just take a look out your window. There’s enough snow out there to make Olympic skiier Lindsay Vonn want another downhill run.

Mother Nature doesn’t care one whit about what the WIAA proclaims.

Even in years when January and February have been so temperate that tulips and crocuses have been in full bloom for the first day of practice, she has seen fit to dump a generous supply of snow on us after the kids have gotten outside to practice.

There have been years when, before they ever take their racquet out of its case, the tennis team picks up snow shovels and clears their court. It’s either a rite of passage or a bonding exercise, depending on the coach.

This week has been par for the course (begging the pardon of the golf team for that pun. It’s got to be rough starting your season before the courses are even open).

Andres Monrroy annually talks about how much he hates this week of practice.

Necessity has him indoors, practicing in the Central Valley gym. But that’s not what puts the ache in the long-time, successful soccer coach.

What makes him feel bad is that the first few days of practice in his program are for tryouts. Yesterday was the day he generally sets his varsity and other rosters. On snow-covered Wednesdays in the middle of the first week of turnouts, he and every other boys soccer coach in the area will have to cut players and set their multiple rosters without his players ever having set foot on a soccer pitch.

He’s not alone.

Baseball and softball coaches will do the same without ever sinking a spike into the dirt of a batter’s box.

To make the baseball team, you have to dig in against a pitching machine fastball and field ground balls that skip off the basketball court – always true and never a bad hop.

With forecasts calling for more winter, one assumes based on the prognostications of a Pennsylvania varmint named Phil who has a love/hate relationship with his shadow, it’s going to be a little while before anyone makes it outside.

Baseball and softball coaches have yet to begin working to make their infields playable. You can probably find University softball coach Jon Schuh staring at his field, trying to melt the accumulated snow with a glare.

This is the time of year when you discover these coaches are as adept talking about frost layers and field drainage as they are about how to get a better riseball out of a pitcher or how to cover the outside corner against a late-breaking slider.

There are softball coaches in the valley who have detailed knowledge about the layers of geology hidden under their infields – whether they are loamy or clay. They prefer the former. The latter takes much, much longer to drain. One softball field used to have a reputation for holding so much standing water that State Fish and Game threatened to stock it with trout.

And if the rakes from the track’s long-jump pit disappear, you can generally find them on the nearest infield, getting the snow mold off the field.

Not that track notices. That sport is perhaps the most adaptable to the weather.

Distance runners have been out running on icy streets for months now. They don’t miss a beat.

Everyone else is indoors doing conditioning runs in the school’s hallways. Throwers get in extra work in the weight room.

They all are waiting for you, Mother Nature.