It’s not completely uncommon in a normal year for winter and spring sports schedules to overlap. Inevitably weather cancelations often lead to final games occurring at least one weekend later than expected. Fortunately, spring sports are usually just getting underway. So, it’s typically just an early-season practice that might be missed.

This year is far from normal.

Because of the pandemic, many winter sports seasons started later than usual or took “breaks” and therefore are ending well into March instead of at the end of February. As of today, it seems that all spring sports, including flag and tackle football leagues, plan to start on time, which is right around March 1. 

That means most likely there will be an overlap of late-season winter games and early spring ones.

How do you choose?

I suggest taking into consideration which game has more meaning to the team? Is the winter sports game just one last game with no playoff implications or is it a playoff game? 

If the winter sports game has no “real” meaning that would be the one to skip since most likely the early spring game does. But if it’s a playoff game, I’d suggest playing in that one, regardless of which one your child prefers. After all, they made the commitment to that team several weeks ago and it’s important to teach the lesson of seeing the season through to the end if there’s a chance to win a championship. It wouldn’t be fair to their teammates to choose otherwise.

Hopefully, both coaches understand the situation and accept the decision without consequence, especially given the unusual pandemic-caused situations in sports.

The reason I’m mentioning this now is so that you have time to have this discussion with your child and then the coaches about your plans before it gets to that point. By doing this, if and when the time comes, neither coach will be surprised by your choice and both coaches can game-plan accordingly.

In a perfect world, there would be no practice or game conflicts from season to season. Unfortunately, right now our world is far from perfect.

Jon Buzby has been involved in and writing about youth sports for the past 30 years with perspectives as a parent, coach and board member. Jon is an award-winning writer and his latest book, “Coaching Kids Made Easier,” is available on Amazon. Send comments or future blog topics you'd like to see to JonBuzby@hotmail.com and follow him @YouthSportsBuzz on Twitter.