Rain, rain go away
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, June 2, 2004
For the past couple of weeks, Greenville Parks and Recreation Director Jerome Harris has got into the habit of watching the weather radar on the local news each morning.
Each day he awakens to discover that rain is predicted at least one day throughout the sevennday forecast.
For some, rain is a blessing. For Harris, it's a headache.
"The rain has been a big damper on the youth leagues," Harris said. "In some leagues, we're as much as three games behind. With the deadline approaching for the district meetings and the AllnStar meeting, we're kind of pushed right now to try to get the games in."
Many games have been rescheduled throughout the season in various leagues, including last night's games. Tuesday night's Dixie Majors, Dixie Boys and TnBall games have been rescheduled for Friday night at the same time and Dixie Youth games will be played Saturday morning. Senior Girls Softball games that are scheduled for Tuesday nights have been rescheduled for next Tuesday.
Even though it's been a task for the Parks and Recreation Department to reschedule all the games that have been rained out, Harris said it's not the first time rain has been an issue.
"Three or four years ago, we had a lot of rain like this," Harris said. "It was so much rain that we really couldn't get all the games in. We had to cancel the rest of the schedule and go with the program. I'm sure we probably won't be able to make up all of these rainouts."
Harris said most of the rescheduling has been done for games scheduled on Monday and Thursday nights. He said
"Those day have been real hard on us this year," he said.
The Midget Girls League is currently three weeks behind. Harris said rescheduling isn't too big of a deal, but having all the team members to show up on the new date has been a problem. Three weeks ago, two Midget Girls games were rescheduled for a Saturday, but neither was played because there weren't enough players to field each team.
"It's not really hard for us to reschedule the games, most of the times when I reschedule the coaches and the parents have other things scheduled and they can't play them. A lot of the games we reschedule end up in forfeits because of lack of players."
Harris said he might have to resort to playing some makeup games on Wednesday in hopes of completing the season.
"I've tried for the last two years not to play children on Wednesdays, but it's getting so bad that it's a possibility that I might have to play some Wednesdays to get the season in," Harris said. "I know that doesn't set good with the church alliance, but my back's to the wall."
Harris said he plans to continue rescheduling games in hopes of completing each youth league season, but said he has several deadlines to meet and will have to call it quits before those deadlines.
"Quite naturally, the parents want their money's worth," he said. "I'm not looking at the monetary fact, I know the children want to play, but I've got deadlines with Dixie, ASA and other things. Once you pick AllnStars that's the end of the league."