See How A Couple Of Conn. H.S. A.D.s Are Dealing With Unexpected Snowstorm

The Register Citizen (Conn.), Peter Wallace
http://www.registercitizen.com/articles/2011/11/03/sports/doc4eb35edda48da077949284.txt?viewmode=fullstory

If you’ve had a rough time with Halloween Snowstorm and its aftermath — who hasn’t? — a ride on the sled with Torrington’s and Northwestern’s Athletic Directors offers you company in your struggles.

Janet Giampaolo is a veteran coach and second-year athletic director at Torrington High School, Naugatuck Valley League representative to the state athletic directors’ association.

Fred Williams is a veteran coach and sixth-year athletic director at Northwestern High School, president of the Berkshire League.

“You want me to keep track of what day it is?” laughed Giampaolo by phone Thursday evening between calls with Kennedy’s AD, still trying to work out a time and place for the schools to play this week’s football game.

“I’m sitting here in the custodian’s room with no lights,” chuckled Williams as a counterpart to Giampaolo’s calendar frenzy.

Both ADs joined the sentiment by Williams: “We’re worried more about the safety of kids than about playing games.”

Nevertheless, all the ADs in the state also join with Giampaolo: “The ultimate goal is to make sure everybody gets a fair shake in the post-season,” she said.

That’s where the week becomes a Rubik’s Cube in both leagues.

“We’ve been meeting every day. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve dropped and punted already,” said Giampaolo, who’s joined her NVL peers in one formula after another for accomplishing league tournaments in soccer, volleyball and swimming before the CIAC state tournaments begin next week.

Each time, up to now, they’ve been stymied by another gaggle of questions about who’s got power, who’s allowed to play and what is the deadline for getting them finished?

For Williams and the Berkshire League ADs, who have just one league tournament, in volleyball, the comparable problem is finishing the regular-season schedule.

“There are a lot of communications going on,” Williams said. “Our conversations have been by phone when we could reach people. We didn’t meet.”

Williams says the Berkshire League volleyball tournament “probably will not be played this year.”

He sent an email today to all the ADs saying “try to get in as many games as you can.”

“We’re taking it one day at a time,” he said. “The fields aren’t drying out. We had too much snow. Our field is 50 to 80 percent covered with snow.”

At Northwestern, boys soccer will play one more game; girls soccer will play one more game.

“I don’t want a beat-down with multiple games before the state tournament begins,” Williams said.

In the midst of swinging and swaying for league tournaments and games, the CIAC relented Thursday from its fixed starting date next week, pushing deadlines off until Tuesday and first rounds until Thursday.

That probably means the NVL can complete its league tournaments while BL teams get in a few more games for state ranking and league standing.

It still feels like quicksand.

Giampaolo gets plenty of perspective in her personal life. Losing power in her home only briefly, she’s been hosting a 95-year-old aunt, checking on another aunt who’s 84 and her mom, 85, while hosting a brother and sister’s families for dinners because they’re without power.

Her husband, James, is co-owner of Peter Merra Landscape Company, which does work throughout the area.

“What we have here is nothing compared to what they have in Avon and other places,” Giampaolo quotes him saying.

“The word he uses is ‘devastation,’” Giampaolo says. “That puts athletics in perspective.”

And yet…at a time like this, athletics can be a more welcome diversion than ever.

As we discover the when’s and where’s, on a one-day-at-a-time basis, fans, coaches and players would do well to adopt Giampaolo’s attitude.

“The more you go with the flow, the better off the kids are,” she says. “It’s all going to work out for everybody.”