Weather still plaguing spring prep sports in greater Chattanooga area

When asked what was up Friday morning, Soddy-Daisy High School baseball coach Jared Hensley had a ready reply.

“My blood pressure, precipitation and the amount of emails I’ve sent to Ralph Chambers,” he retorted.

Chambers is the assignment chief for the local umpires group, and Hensley had been trying to keep him abreast of changing game times and sites for the Trojans’ annual tournament.

The tournament was washed out Friday and Saturday, becoming at least the sixth fundraising weekend baseball event this season to be worked around rain and then more rain, and Hensley finally surrendered late Friday afternoon.

“We couldn’t play here today if it was a state championship game and we were playing Little Sisters of the Poor’s JV team,” Hensley said Friday, later canceling hopes of getting teams at least two games each on Saturday.

It has been that way with most tournaments, baseball and otherwise, this spring.

“One day in our tournament we put the tarp on and then pulled it five times, and then had to play on top of that,” Lookout Valley softball coach David Dinger said.

It has been that kind of spring season.

With district games still to be played and the postseason start just two weeks away, most spring coaches don’t want to look at the weather forecast without a rabbit’s foot or a four-leaf clover in hand.

“I don’t think we have played a game this year when the field was completely dry,” Hensley said. “It might’ve been playable but there was water in the outfield, down the foul lines or in the dugouts. My shoes have been wet after every single game we’ve played this year.”

Wherever they have walked, baseball and softball coaches have felt their feet sink.

“It’s been brutal this season, and there hasn’t been a close second,” Hensley added.

For some it is as bad economically as a depression. Operational funds, already hard to come by, are being pinched.

Like most other tournaments, Soddy-Daisy’s Trojan Classic generates between $5,000 and $8,000. Hensley’s booster club tries to set that money aside, excluding it from the overall budget, “but it’s going to create an impact starting next year,” he said.

On top of the tournament cancellation, the Trojans have lost eight games to the weather.

And it is no better for any Chattanooga-area program, with the exception of McCallie, which has an artificial-surfaced infield.

“With six teams grades six through 12, McCallie definitely has gotten its money’s worth,” Blue Tornado coach Greg Payne said.

McCallie even held its Scenic City Classic after fast-thinking field maintenance crew members used blowers to remove snow from the turf as rising temperatures melted snow in the outfield.

Others aren’t so fortunate.

“We’ve only been able to play one home game this year — that was two-three weeks ago — out of 23 games,” Boyd-Buchanan baseball coach Josh Ryder said. “We’ve practiced less than 10 times on our field (since preseason work began in February).”

It is frustrating.

“We’ve only played 10 games,” Red Bank softball coach Mandi Munn said. “We counted it the other day and it was something like 17 games we’ve lost because of the weather.”

Because of the dirt infield, it’s harder to get a softball field playable as opposed to a baseball field, and most baseball programs have tarps to cover the infield, even if they’re holey from more than two decades of use like the one Soddy-Daisy uses.

Track programs are somewhat different. Most teams will run unless there are severe thunderstorms or lightning.

“We have run in the rain, although events like the high jump can be treacherous,” East Hamilton track coach Ted Gatewood said. “We were supposed to run Thursday at Walker Valley but had to postpone. At our level you err on the side of caution.”

That postponement was due partially to an advisory from the Hamilton County superintendent’s office that all afternoon and evening extracurricular activities should be postponed.

That decision is what cost the Soddy-Daisy soccer team its first weather-related postponement, but without that notice most soccer teams would’ve played. Soccer players, after all, are the free spirits of spring, the kids who don’t mind mud from head to toe or drying out their cleats on a near daily basis.

“We’re kind of like the postmen of spring sports,” Soddy-Daisy coach Clint Steele said. “We’ve been out there in snow, in rain and sun. I think the kids like (inclement weather) because they get to play in it.”

Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at Twitter.com/wardgossett.