University of North Carolina Athletics
Car-O-Lines: Spring Sports May Finally Get More Attention
April 2, 2001 | General
April 2, 2001
By Rick Brewer, SID Emeritus
Previous Car-O-Lines Columns By Rick Brewer
With the college basketball season coming to an end, hopefully attention in this area will finally shift to spring sports.
It needs to happen quickly because, in many instances, those sports' seasons will soon be coming to a close.
Carolina, for example, has already played eight of its 11 men's lacrosse games. Thirty-three of the Tar Heels' baseball games have already been scheduled with 25 remaining. Bad weather has altered that somewhat and Coach Mike Fox is hoping to get some of his cancelled games played in April and May.
The opening of the major league baseball season, the Masters this weekend and the weekly soap opera which has produced some of the finest professional tennis in a decade possibly may help draw attention to those sports on the college level.
Over the last 25 years the spring sports have suffered on campus because of a change in the academic schedule. For many years the school's first semester started in early or mid-September. Exams were then held in January. Second semester began in late January and did not conclude until the end of May.
That gave teams such as baseball, golf and lacrosse the months of April and May, which usually have fine weather, to get in most of their competition.
However, in the mid-1970's students and professors asked that the academic calendar be changed. Students wanted to get exams over before the Christmas holidays and not have to worry about them during that break. Professors also agreed it made more sense to end the first semester prior to the long Christmas holiday and start fresh with a new schedule of classes when students returned to campus in January.
This is an academic institution and the decision made perfect sense.
But, it also ended the school year in early May. From an athletic standpoint, that meant the spring sports had to begin competition earlier to get in all their playing dates. Instead of starting games in March, the baseball team, for example, now has to begin play in early February.
Such early competition by the baseball, golf, tennis, lacrosse, track and rowing teams has created all kinds of problems for them. Bad weather has created a number of difficulties. Not only have some of those teams been unable to compete, but valuable practice time has also been lost. The tennis and track teams can work out and compete indoors. The baseball and lacrosse teams can also go inside, but it's not the same as being on the field.
Carolina isn't the only school that faces such problems. Continuing to look at baseball, all of the power leagues in the sport--the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big Twelve, the Pac-10 and the Southeastern Conference--have been plagued by bad weather this year.
The Tar Heels have been hit hard by rain in the last two weeks, but have still played 30 games. Second-ranked Stanford and third-rated South Carolina have each only played 31. Oklahoma State, a perennial powerhouse, has played 30 and Miami has played 34. So the weather has really been a national problem.
The lacrosse team can play in rain and on a sloppy field. But, it certainly takes something away from the game.
Plus, cold and rain hurts attendance for a sport that has traditionally drawn very well on this campus.
While the men's and women's tennis teams have an indoor facility, Tar Heel golfers have had little chance to practice.
Plus, when teams have gotten a chance to compete they have been overshadowed in this hotbed of college basketball. Newspaper editors have also had to make choices between spring sports and the other winter sports that were competing at the same time--swimming, wrestling, indoor track, and gymnastics--for the little space that is often available. Basically, they have given more play to the winter sports until their conclusion.
But, now with NCAA championships decided in all the winter sports, here's hoping the spring sports start drawing the attention they deserve and also get a break from the bad weather that has made March so miserable for each of those teams.
