Originally Posted by Stat-Man
So, why does Hawaii play girls basketball in the spring, and Georgia play softball in the fall?
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Originally Posted by angryZebra
maybe because they are trying to work around the rainy season? I would think they try to play softball/baseball during the driest part of the year?
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I can't speak for Georgia, but in Hawaii the driving factor was very limited gym and field space, especially among the private schools. Of the 20 or so private schools on Oahu (some co-ed, some all-boys, some all-girls) there are only about 10 gyms, and 2-3 of those are really inadequate for D-I HS games, so the schools with gyms have to share with those without. And the public schools and private schools do not share facilities (with the exception of Aloha Stadium for football games). The same is true of baseball, softball, and soccer fields...plus 2 of the NCAA D-II schools (men & women) on island use the same gyms as well; and UH facilities are used only for state tournaments. Therefore, it made sense to separate the boys and girls basketball, baseball, softball, soccer, and volleyball seasons, and fortunately the weather allows any sport to be played any time of the year there.
I called private school basketball in Hawaii the last 3 years and 2 more years a few years before that...there are separate associations for the private and public leagues and I happened to join the private school assoc when I moved there. When the boys and girls seasons were split there were usually 2-3 games (some combination of varsity, JV, freshman) per gym per night, 4-5 nights per week plus 3-5 more on Saturdays...and that doesn't even include middle school games. The gyms were in constant use. Now that boys and girls will play in the same season it will be a scheduling nightmare (and not only for games but for double the practice time now). One of the benefits of Hawaii is that some practices and conceivably even some lower-level games could be played outside, but no one wants that. On top of that, there is a shortage of varsity-capable officials and the ILH (private league) coaches and AD's have, in my opnion anyway, far too much power in determining who they will accept as varsity officials. On top of everything else, societally Hawaii is a very entrenched place...change in general is not welcome and feet will be dragged.
As I said in an earlier post, it will be a MESS! And I don't mean to imply it's necessarily a bad thing...just that it will be ugly there for 2-3 years (or longer??). Until they figure it out and all the parties involved decide to accept the inevitable and move forward, it will be a mess.