With the tremendous amount of rain we’ve had this spring, it’s time to revisit the old idea of shortening the high school regular seasons.

Some may remember we talked about this in the past.

Two winters ago, the near-record snowfalls pushed many WPIAL basketball teams to the last possible day to get in all of their section games.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the WPIAL extended teams an additional two days to try and finish the season.

Granted, this is an out-of-the-ordinary case. The chances that teams have to postpone and reschedule that many games is pretty rare, but it can happen nonetheless and it did for 2009-10.

Somewhere along the way we’ve believed that more was better. I don’t recall my high school teams playing 24 games in a season.

Where did things get so out of hand? The basketball schedule did get scaled back to 22 games maximum for the regular season, but that’s still too many. It’s time schools and districts begin to place even tighter limits on games.

Let’s not forget these are student-athletes, despite the fact some districts don’t seem to be concerned if a student-athlete gets home after midnight from a long trip on a school night. Students have a responsibility to their schoolwork and administrators should see to it that’s possible.

With baseball and softball, snow is not much a concern, but it can leave for some poor field conditions, especially when you add all the rain.

We finally got warm temperatures this past weekend, but they came with some rain. Grove City High School got in a doubleheader last week. Don’t be surprised if more baseball or softball teams try this as we get into the latter stages of April and early May.

Many teams do schedule nonsection games the first two weeks or so with the idea of rescheduling depending on how much the weather improves.

I still think the seasons are too long. Two yearbooks sitting on a nearby shelf in our department date back to 1995. One area school played 18 baseball games and 20 softball games, another school 15 and 15.

The weather may have trimmed those numbers — or not. Still, it’s time to limit games, other than football, to two games a week, tops. You play an eight-week schedule —16 games. Nine weeks? 18 games.

Too many sports are running into the next season. School is a nine-month calendar. If teams such as golf or girls tennis like to get an early start in August, fine.

But a line needs to be drawn somewhere. There’s nothing wrong with a few extra practices a season. Kids are home earlier and have time to do, oh, I don’t know, their homework. A novel concept.

Soon, schools will have to charge kids to compete in hopes they don’t have to cut sports or budgets. It’s something that will need to be considered and it’s better than the alternative.

Sam Tallarico is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.