(Area) The IGHSAU and IHSAA’s Family Week continues. Sean Birks, Audubon activities director and football coach, says this idea was picked up on from other states.
Birks believes most athletes and their families are very much in favor of this annual period that provides a week off. “As far as I have heard everything has been pretty well received.” Birks says, “I think it’s going over really well.”
The only downside perhaps, is that baseball season will have to be adjusted to make room for this. “They slid the state baseball tournament up a week and so they basically slid the whole baseball calendar up a week. So baseball games are now going to start before state track. It’s really crammed in their a little bit now. Small schools are really struggling to see how we are going to handle that. Personally us in Audubon are going to try and play a game on that Monday or Tuesday or both of that state track week and then not again until the next week. The first week of baseball games we are really only going to get one game so you’re losing a week full of games.”
This will provide a true gap in between summer sports and fall sports. “With Iowa having summer baseball our kids are constantly going, seasons are overlapping it’s go, go, go. I can tell you from my history as a football and baseball coach, vacations–even my wedding anniversary–everything was always crammed into July 20th-30th. Teams that made state baseball really had no offseason. This was a chance to give everyone a chance to rest and recover and have some downtime where people aren’t going to miss offseason workouts or weights. It gives everybody-coaches, AD’s, athletes, and families in general- a time to kick back a little bit and hit the new year strong.”
The week of inactivity began Sunday, July 25th and runs through Sunday, August 1st.
