Off-season summer activities in other sports hurting Legion baseball?

The following is a post from Huskerland Preps blogger Mister Mojo. He has some great points that really effect us out here in Western Nebraska.

A problem that I'm becoming increasingly aware of is that Legion baseball in a lot of smaller towns is getting killed by basketball, wrestling and football activities during the summer. In schools that have spring baseball (and the spring coach is usually the summer coach), there's much better cooperation among the coaches that helps baseball fend off encroachment during the summer season. But if schools don't have spring baseball, those football, basketball and wrestling coaches don't have to face a baseball coach every day in the hallways, and they don't have someone pushing them to schedule summer practices and workouts around the Legion baseball schedule.

When I wrote the series of articles about multi-sport athletes last fall (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), I heard a lot of good stuff about AD's who are trying to coordinate what happens in the summer to make sure that Legion baseball (which is connected to their spring program) remains viable. What I heard AD's say over and over is that the sport in season gets priority. And if they have a spring baseball program, they extend that protection to Legion baseball. For those schools, Legion baseball is the "sport in season" during the summer, and other coaches are supposed to respect that.

I know that it's probably not perfect in lots of Class A and B baseball schools, but at least you've got someone in those schools -- the AD and the baseball coach -- trying to make it work. Without spring baseball in the school, that protection goes away and baseball becomes very vulnerable to the pressures of the high school coaches in other sports. Unless you have the AD invested in your Legion baseball program (because it's tied to his spring baseball program), summer baseball becomes the whipping boy. In schools that don't have spring baseball, Legion baseball may be thought of as more of a summer recreational activity than a significant sport, certainly not as important as the sports that are played in those high schools. And we all know that coaches are aggressive, competitive guys. If there is an opportunity to make their football or basketball or wrestling program better during the summer, they're going to get after it -- and there goes your baseball team.

This is a very big problem in lots of small towns across Nebraska -- even in places like Wakefield, the baseball capital of Nebraska. Coach Eaton probably has enough clout up there to get the AD's attention, but other sports are chipping away slowly but surely.

My point is ... we need to get spring baseball going in some of those "at risk" Legion baseball towns before the Legion baseball programs get totally killed by other sports.

I kind of feel like the clock is ticking. The more I learn about the problem, the more I realize that there's some urgency about getting spring baseball up and running.

I would be very interested in hearing comments from folks on this topic, especially from Legion ballplayers who are directly affected. To what extent are the high school coaches of the "major" sports -- football, basketball and wrestling -- pushing you to forget about Legion baseball and focus on their sport during the summer? How strongly are those "suggestions" worded? Do you feel that you really have a choice in the matter?