With the uncertainty of late winter and early spring Texas weather comes repercussions, and for many sports teams, this means crowding into the indoor facility to stay warm and dry during practice.

“With all the people in the indoor there is less practice space, so it makes it harder to work out and learn new things,” soccer play Reagan Miles said. “All of the distractions make it harder to focus on soccer and hear our coach.”

The frustration is shared by everybody that uses the indoor facility.

“The cheerleaders are assigned the space to practice in, (due to gyms generally being full with other sports) and I don’t really mind other teams coming in and practicing when it’s cold,” cheer coach Jennifer Leary said. “I think it upsets the girls when others come in and say that we need to leave, and that cheer doesn’t do anything to need the space because we do.”

The use of the indoor facility by each team is pre-planned, based on a number of factors.

“The indoor schedule is determined by each head coach,” athletic director Jim Bob Puckett said. “They communicate their needs and set up the schedule based on the needs of each program.”

The coaches also plan ahead based on weather conditions.

“If we know it’s going to be a cold day, we send out a big email with all the coaches to figure out who will practice where,” varsity cheer coach Kristen Kinnard said.

Although the cheerleaders may be assigned the space, when it gets too cold or too wet, other sports are forced inside.

“Our sport takes place in a large area; we need a large space to practice in, to do it correctly. When there is more than one sport in (the indoor), even if it’s just us and our JV team, the space gets compressed, so we can’t really do anything effective,” girls soccer coach Jeff Kear said. “Second, when there are two or more sports in there at the same time, each one has created a distraction from what the other one is doing, it’s hard to remain focused. I’m sure we’re distracting to softball; we don’t mean to be, we’re just doing our thing. We create a distraction towards them, and they are distracting to us, nobody is trying to be a pain in the neck, the situation just created that.”

Although it is easy to focus on the negative, there are positives that come along with the indoor facility.

“I think our facilities are already so far above what other schools have, I think we should be happy with what we have,” Kear said. “The irritation of what I feel there could also be the irritation I would feel if we did not have an indoor at all, and we were practicing in the cold. Fifteen years ago, when nobody had these things, we just sucked it up and practiced in the cold; we complained about it, but that didn’t make it wrong. Being crowded in this indoor, yeah it’s irritating, but its not the end of the world, and we are actually pretty blessed to have it at all.”