Can’t vouch for any scientific method of quantifying it, but I’m certain I’ve heard multiple mental health professionals proclaim March “the most depressing month to live in Maine.”

Most of us didn’t require such a revelation, of course. I celebrated Friday’s alleged first day of spring by thawing a frozen pipe underneath my kitchen sink.

In other, unseasonably warm years, the extra hour of spring-ahead daylight merely gives us extra time to examine the ankle-deep mud and barren trees and wonder when any real signs of life will emerge.

Miserable stuff, on its own merits. Now try being a high school athlete, or try being one of the fans or ink-stained wretches who chase them around and celebrate their exploits.

Or maybe I’m the only person who has noticed that Maine’s co-curricular calendar is completely messed up, but I doubt it.

In case you aren’t familiar with the particulars, here’s the skinny on how the Maine Principals’ Association athletic seasons work.

Fall — Practice infamously begins on or around the third Monday of August, when the weather is usually still hotter than Hades the day (fill in the name of your least favorite oppressive dictator) showed up. Games begin about 72 hours on either side of Labor Day. Soccer and field hockey’s regular seasons are wrapping up by Columbus Day. Those championships, along with cross country and golf, are complete no later than the first weekend of November.

Winter — Here, it gets murky. Football’s state championships are handed out the weekend before Thanksgiving. Some years, that means we’re already a week deep into winter sports tryouts and practice. At the latest, that schedule commences two days after the Gold Ball is handed out on the gridiron. Holiday vacations are a nightmare as a families try to balance getaways with athletic priorities. Weather generally wreaks havoc with a season that is squeezed into a six-week window. Basketball championships are contested during the traditional February vacation week. Hockey follows.

Spring — And here, it just gets silly. For most athletes, there is a lull of nearly a month between the return of winter uniforms and the dawn of spring practice. Rarely if ever are the fields or track ready on the opening day of workouts, prolonging the agony. Once the snow clears, again, there are about six weeks to play a full season, one that is eminently distracted by graduation, prom, final exams, restlessness and every other rite of passage you can imagine.

Let’s be clear: None of this is the fault of the MPA. The administrators do the best they can to accommodate all these activities in the state with the most prohibitive weather conditions in the nation.

There are logical tweaks and shifts, however, which could prevent March from becoming a netherworld of apathy, atrophy and inactivity.

Fall sports don’t need to launch in the dog days, for starters. That entire schedule could be shifted at least two full weeks to the right.

Sure, it’s cold in mid-November for athletes in shorts and skirts. But it’s brutal in April and May, too. You know that if you’ve ever sat in a lawn chair for seven innings and tried to keep a baseball scorebook with one ungloved hand.

And yes, there is the risk of snow if you push soccer and field hockey state finals closer to Thanksgiving and football to mid-December. There are enough artificial turf facilities in the state now, however, to furnish a Plan B, C or D in the event of unplayable grass. Perhaps you’ve noticed the trend of green or brown Christmas around here, anyway.

Winter sports appear held hostage by the time-honored tradition of that February vacation week. By golly, there are people who block off that time every year to attend games in Augusta and Bangor. We can’t trifle with them!

We like our evenly spaced, compartmentalized life: School vacation week at Christmas, seven weeks on, February vacation off, seven weeks on, April vacation off.

But why not get on board with the rest of the world and make it a two-week recess in March? During that time, the state could put on a basketball (first week) and hockey (second week) state championship party like we’ve never seen.

Winter tryouts would start the Monday after Christmas, followed by a two-week preseason. That gives us a regular season from Jan. 8 to March 8 with fewer fits and starts. It would better occupy the full window of what is the real winter in Maine.

Then, after we all enjoy a couple weeks to recoup, spring sports kick off April 1. Plenty of time to get it all done before “Pomp and Circumstance.”

None of this will happen anytime soon, of course. We love our tradition. It melts away more slowly than the ice in Franklin County.

For the foreseeable future, then, the vast majority of our state’s high school athletes will continue to celebrate the second half of winter with junk food and video games. Gazing wistfully at the clock and the snow pack, neither of which seem to budge.

Depressing, but true.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His email is koakes@sunjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Oaksie72.

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