Summer presents its own challenges for players, coaches

You’d never know it by looking at the thermometer, but the change of seasons already has begun for many high school athletes.

Preseason football practices are under way in some southern states, while fall sports workouts began Monday here in Maine for Aroostook County schools that observe the harvest break each fall.

But for student-athletes in the other 15 counties, one of their favorite times of the year is fast approaching — and it’s not their own fall sports preseason, which begins August 15.

What many high school student-athletes relish are the first two weeks of August, which are deemed a hands-off period by the Maine Principals’ Association so there can be no direct interaction between players and their coaches.

It represents a marked change from the previous six weeks of summer when the athletes’ loyalties are pulled in a variety of directions depending on what else is going on in their lives or how many sports they choose to play during the school year.

Coaches often coordinate with each other so they’re not scheduling workouts and summer games in their respective sports at the same time, but that only simplifies matters for the coaches while stretching out the weekly schedule for the athletes.

Many athletes thrive in that environment and can’t get enough summer competition.

Others want and sometimes need more of a break during the summer, both to rest their bodies and minds but often to fulfill other responsibilities like working in order to help their families or build up their college funds, helping to take care of younger siblings, or perhaps they just want to to have a little non-competitive fun in the sun before it’s time to return to the classroom.

That conflict between commitment to their sports teams and other activities seemingly is becoming more and more acute as those off-field responsibilities increase or there become more recreational options for high school kids during the summer.

It’s taking its toll in some areas. Take American Legion baseball. It wasn’t that long ago when Zone 1, the zone that covers the northern half of the state, was thriving with 11 teams ranging as far north as Presque Isle and as far Down East as Calais.

But several teams have since disappeared, including Presque Isle, Calais, Lincoln, Waldo County and Midcoast (Rockland).

This summer there were eight teams, including one from Skowhegan and another from Oakland that were refugees from a central Maine zone that essentially disbanded due to the loss of several teams.

And another Zone 1 club, the Rowell’s Penquis Navigators of Dover-Foxcroft, was unable to complete its season this year because of the lack of available players.

Many coaches in all sports have begun adapting to the reality that the world is more complicated for kids than it was a generation ago, and that summer is not just a time for kids to merely yield to the perceived pressure to play on various off-season sports teams or risk falling deeper on the depth chart come the high school season.

Players are much more likely to be excused from a summer game or workout in order to work than they were a generation ago.

But as is perhaps the case with an American Legion baseball regular season that essentially is compacted into five weeks, more and more kids are coming to the conclusion that they don’t want any summer sport to become a fulltime job.

To some such a demanding sports schedule is less of a deterrent, and the fruits of such dedication can be considerable — just look the Bangor baseball program that has produced three straight Class A state championships and back-to-back Maine American Legion titles heading into this week’s state tournament in Augusta.

But to those coaches who decry a general lack of commitment among players today, sometimes it’s just that the players have other commitments and it’s the coaches who need to adjust.

And, truth be told, but for the pressure to keep up with their colleagues more than a few coaches wouldn’t mind a longer summer break themselves.