EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) – Saturday evening the Eau Claire Area School District announced their decision to postpone fall sports to the spring.

There have been many suspicions that this news was on the horizon for fall athletes. Finally yesterday a hammer came down on the Eau Claire Area School District with news that will shake up fall athletics like we’ve never seen before.

Many high school kids in the area feel like they’ve taken too many hits lately, losing some of the activities that students look forward to the most.

“It’s just been a series of losses for our kids,” said Eau Claire North’s football coach Andy Jarzynski.

So, the administration is doing what they can to make sure fall sports don’t vanish as well.

Mike Sinz, football coach at Memorial High School told WEAU,

“we are excited to move forward and we got to make sure we use this opportunity to give our kids every possible sport that they want to play in that they can do that and this is a great alternative”

John Hedrington, a senior lineman at Eau Claire North High School told WEAU,

“I was a little but bummed at first but I’m still grateful that were having a season at all this year. If it’s in the spring, that is better than no season at all”.

Football in the spring, it will be a first time for most.

Sinz and Jarzynski both say this will lend their football teams extra time to get prepared to hit the field again after some extended time off.

“A huge positive is that we get six months of lifting, sprinting, working out and that’s huge for us because we are very inexperienced this year and we have some young guys so it’s nice to give them some more time to develop”.

Optimistic, but concerns do linger for some. Athletes who plan to play collegiate sports may have to miss out on their senior season.

“We would recommend that they talk to their families and college coaches to see what they want to do with that. There are no guarantees in football and so you can’t be certain that there won’t be some sort of injury but for the vast majority of our guys this is going to be an opportunity for them to get out and have fun” said Jarzynski.

However, one factor that will affect all outdoor fall athletes?…

“Well the weather is definitely going to be different than how it usually is when we start football here in the fall where its 80 degrees and sunny and nice”

“It will either be really wet from early thaw or we could have 20 inches of snow. And if we have 20 inches of snow we’ll have 100 guys out there with shovels making it happen… Lift with the legs that’s right!” said Jarzynski

Now the Eau Claire schools wait to see which other districts will opt for the spring season.

Eau Claire and La Crosse are the only school districts that have made the move to spring, which means the clock is ticking for their opponents.

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