2-a-Days Pondered

[E.T.]

Published Thursday, January 27, 2005

Football 2-a-Days Pondered

By Roy Fuoco

roy.fuoco@theledger.com

Two-a-day practices could return in high school football.

The FHSAA is considering some changes to the athletic calender for next year when it meets next week for its quarterly board of directors meeting.

There has been a proposal to add an open week, which was eliminated four years ago, to the football season. However, the FHSAA doesn't want to extend the football season and push the state championship games further into the winter sports season.

To accomplish both goals, there's a proposal to begin fall practice a week earlier. That would allow practices to start a week before classes begin and allow coaches to have two-aday practices.

The upside of two-a-day practices is that teams wouldn't fall behind because of afternoon thunderstorms.

The downside is that there might be more practices in the summer heat, although that could be diminished with early-morning and late-afternoon practices. With no classes, that could be allowed.

There would be the same number of weeks of practice leading up to the Kickoff Classics, so the Classics would be moved up a week. The current 10-week regular season then becomes 11 weeks with an open date.

Most other sports, including volleyball, soccer, basketball, softball and baseball, also would begin and end a week earlier so the state boys basketball tournament would end the first weekend in March instead of the second week.

In the fall, state swimming and state cross country, currently held the same weekend, would split up, and the baseball, the final state event, would end a week earlier.