When talk first arose about changing Michigan’s school athletic seasons, the response was strong and was something along the lines of “Why mess things up?”

Not everyone saw it quite that way. The dozens of school districts nearer to the state’s borders might not have been pleased with the change, but they knew the switch would make the state conform  with others.

It wasn’t Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin that handled sports scheduling in an unusual manner. Instead, Michigan was the oddball. For example, nearly every state in the country played volleyball in the fall.

Michigan was finally forced to make the switch for the current school year and it hasn’t gone all that well. The number of fans at boys’ games has declined along with the shortage of Friday night dates. Scheduling gymnasium time for practices has also become a challenge.

The state athletic association has a proposal to fix some problems: a five-season  sports schedule, with football games starting even earlier in August and boys basketball wrapping up in late April—early May for the top teams. The change would push track, softball and baseball far beyond the end of the school year, with championship games coming in late June.

A column in the Detroit Free Press last week indicates that many school administrators are welcoming the proposal. That’s not the case in this office. The reasons to reject the plan are many, from hot weather considerations to overlapping seasons to robbing more of a student’s summer break.

Perhaps a better solution is to begin talking now about making the existing line-up more successful. Speak with  athletic directors in other states and find out how they make it work. Can the girls and boys varsity teams both play on the same night as a double-header? Should the boys get Fridays for half the season and the girls the other half? Are there other solutions to consider?

If the discussion doesn’t start now, we’ll be in the same position at this time next year. And two years down the road, we might be attending football games in the middle of August and coming to basketball games dressed in T-shirt and shorts.