With over 50 inches of recorded snowfall this year in Omaha, the seventh snowiest winter season on record, it made the Feb. 25 start of spring sports a struggle to practice and play outside.

Not all the snow was an issue, but dangerous sub zero temperatures had coaches moving their practices inside the building and into the hallways and gym instead of the court, field and track.  

Crowded hallways soon became the norm as track, soccer, baseball, tennis and golf all competed for valuable space in the building. Hallways that were filled with teachers and students are now filled with track runners.   

“Practicing inside is pretty hard because it is hard to duplicate all the workouts we do outside and especially the field events because you can’t do all the field events inside,” boys track and field head coach Colin Johnston said. “ Also, running outside in the cold makes the runners run slow so we can’t go outside everyday.”

The field events like throwing, long jump, triple, high jump and pole vault got the worse out of the snow because they can’t do the routines they have inside. Running inside also makes it hard for other teachers to walk around because they have to move out the away for the runners and also make sure to check corners all the time just in case someone is coming towards them.    

The weather also forces in the soccer team into practicing inside in the gym and the classrooms to tryout for goalie. The team also had to look outside of school for the first time to get ready for the games, they had six o’clock practices in the morning at the indoor soccer center.  

“The problem with practicing inside is the surface of a gym is much different than turf or grass,” senior Carter Ross said. “So it’s hard to get as much control as you can on another surface.”

This also forced the baseball team to be inside for practice and use the gym as a field. The use of the gym floor doesn’t give them the same bounce as a they would get in baseball field. They are making use of all the facility they have inside to get the team ready for the season. .

“We just make do with what we have. We can have 90′ bases in the gym so we can take a full infield,” coach Steve Frey said. “We can have pitchers throw to batters in our batting cages so we have to be well prepared and have well organized practice plans inside.”

The teams want to go outside, use all the great facilities they can use to practice, and get ready for their season. All they want is for the weather to get better and all the snow to melt. This winter has really made it a struggle for all the spring sports.