PIHS teams starting later
Adopting PVC schedule
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — When next Monday’s opening day of preseason fall sports practices begin around Aroostook County for schools that annually schedule a harvest recess later in the year, Ralph Michaud will have to find something new to do.
That’s not because the girls varsity soccer coach at Presque Isle High School has changed jobs — he’s held his post for 19 years after 13 autumns spent as an assistant coach for the Wildcats’ boys soccer program.
But rather than rejoin the rest of The County teams in the early start provided by the Maine Principals’ Association each year to compensate for the one- to three-week harvest breaks that schools in the region typically take in late September and early October, Presque Isle’s fall sports teams are going to adhere to the schedule that applies to high schools in the rest of the state for the first time.
That begins Aug. 1, 2016 with a Maine Principals’ Association-mandated two-week hands-off period in which there is no contact between high school coaches and their student-athletes, followed by the start of preseason practices on Monday, Aug. 15, that leads to the teams’ regular-season openers no earlier than Sept. 2.
Harvest-break schools such as Presque Isle, by comparison, may start fall sports workouts on July 25 with their regular-season openers as soon as August 12.
“I just think it’s a chance to let the kids have a couple of weeks for themselves,” said Michaud of the switch.
The move was made for two reasons, according to Presque Isle High School athletic administrator Mark White, whose school still observes a three-week harvest break.
One was to extend the length of summer vacation for student-athletes at the school and their families.
“For us, the kids have no summer,” said White, who consulted other school officials before making the scheduling change that affects Presque Isle’s boys and girls soccer, golf and cross-country teams.
“School gets out sometime around June 20, and then they have to be back at soccer practice around [July 25], and that just wasn’t enough time for the parents and the kids. We have pretty active summer programs here in basketball and soccer that the kids are involved with, so we’re just shutting it all down on [Aug. 1] and opening it back up on [Aug. 15],” he said.
Presque Isle voluntarily self-imposed a one-week hands-off period before starting its fall sports practices last year, and White said the reaction to that respite encouraged him to do something more permanent.
“County schools don’t fall under that two-week hands-off period mandated by the [Maine Principals’ Association],” said White, “but we felt it was important that families have a week with nothing going on at school, and it was very well received.
“How well it was received by the parents and the coaches made this decision a lot easier, to be honest,” he added.
Both Michaud and Presque Isle boys varsity soccer coach Joe Greaves had conversed with White about a possible schedule change for several years, and their endorsements also proved valuable.
“I just think this was coming, and last year was a good test,” said Greaves. “When you step back and take a look, yes, you want the kids to play as much of your sport as possible, but then there’s no time left for the kids and their families.
“By Mark doing that last year, we gave everybody a week off before practice started, and it really didn’t affect our season. It didn’t affect how we did, it didn’t change the things we do, and looking forward we asked ourselves if we start like everybody else and give them two weeks with hands off, is this really going to impact us with harvest break? I don’t think so.”
The new schedule also brings Presque Isle — one of just two Class B athletic programs left in Aroostook County — into line with the majority of its regular-season competition in the Penobscot Valley Conference that traditionally starts preseason practices in mid-August after the Maine Principals’ Association’s two-week hands-off period.
Historically there has been occasional talk among Presque Isle’s more southern PVC Class B opponents about not wanting to face the Wildcats early in the soccer season when the additional two weeks of preseason practice might provide more of a benefit.
Presque Isle coaches have countered with how the longer duration of its fall sports season — particularly the combination of hot late-July and early August practices and the grueling daytime work and evening practice schedules during harvest break from mid-September until after Columbus Day — often left players more fatigued than their rivals as the playoffs approached.
“I think some of the other coaches felt like because we started early that gives us an advantage starting early,” said Greaves. “I can see that, but I also have been through it, and I think we’ve found that it’s not an advantage. In fact, it seems to be a hassle to ask a kid and his family to be obligated to our soccer team on [Aug 1].
“And after about the second week of harvest going into the third week we start to struggle with what we call ‘potato legs.’ The boys are dragging because it’s a long three weeks for them,” he said.
Presque Isle typically has scheduled weeknight practices during harvest break along with midweek games involving the Wildcats’ longer road trips and home games on Saturdays.
“It was time to make the change,” said White. “We have to play through harvest, we don’t stop during harvest, and I think the intent of that dispensation from the [Maine Principals’ Association] is that County teams stop during harvest, and we just can’t do that. We have to travel to the Bangor area for weekday games during harvest to get those games in.”
The change also may enable Presque Isle to line up a more challenging preseason schedule against downstate opponents.
“The way I sold it to the coaches was No. 1, we could eliminate all the weeklong gaps in their schedules — sometimes we’d play Saturday and Saturday with nothing in between — because of the length of the season, and also I could get them into some competitive playdays in the Bangor and Portland areas during preseason where they’d be playing more Class B and Class A teams.”
Presque Isle will retain its Aroostook County rivalries with Class B Caribou and Class C Fort Kent, but the fact that the Wildcats have just those four matches against local teams within its 14-game regular-season soccer schedules made it easier to synchronize their regular-season timetables with the rest of their PVC brethren.
Caribou, by contrast, still plays nearly half of its matches against Aroostook County opponents Presque Isle, Fort Kent and Class C Madawaska and thus has retained its harvest break-related preseason regimen.
“We’ll see how it goes. It’s all going to be new for everybody, kids and coaches included,” said Michaud. “But I think it may eventually help us at the end of the season where we may not be burnt out as much.
“It’s just good for family time. Those two hands-off weeks before tryouts, I’m all for it and giving kids time to spend with their families and go on vacation and get away from basketball and get away from soccer,” he said.
“Just don’t get hurt,” he added. “No one-legged water skiing.”
