Under the dark grey sky, senior punt returner Isaiah Phillips digs his feet into the damp ground as the ball speeds towards him. He struggles to locate the ball in the heavy rain, but secures it tightly as the wind blows in his face. With the opposing team honing in on his position, he squints through the rain, and starts to run.
“Between the rain in my eyes, guys running at me and both the ball and the ground being very slippery definitely makes my job harder than it already is,” Phillips said. “It’s a real test of my focus and grit.”
The weather is one of the few aspects in a match that is completely out of the control of players, yet can sway the game plan and result in any contest. For athletes who play their sport outdoors, the weather can make or break their performance. Although Palo Alto typically features mild weather, the occasional rainy afternoon or unusually cold evening can certainly run its course on any game. Let’s take a deep dive into how Paly athletes are affected by the aspects of weather.
Sports like golf can be negatively impacted by poor weather conditions. Golf is a unique sport in that the match is decided by comparing scores with that of the opponents, yet the base of the game is centered around playing against the course. Golf courses feature a variety of terrains and obstacles — including grass, sand bunkers, putting greens, forests, water and more. In the winter, the quality of these things often decrease.
“We’re lucky it doesn’t snow here, but it still gets wet and cold which makes it hard to play in the winter,” junior and golfer Dylan Liao said.
Having grass can often make putting on greens less predictable in addition to worsening the lie of balls. The short days in the winter often make it difficult to practice on the course. A typical game takes four to five hours to play 18 holes, meaning you have to start the latest by around 1 p.m. in the winter in order to remain in the daylight. This limits the amount of tee time available at courses.
“It also gets dark around 5 [p.m.] which makes it very hard to get full rounds in,” Liao said. “This makes it more difficult to practice and improve my game.”
To combat this, the development of ball-tracking technology, indoor/simulator golf has been an up-and-coming industry. Golfers willing to pay the high price can experience an accurate represention at home during the winter when it is impractical to play outside.
Rowing takes place on the water, where rain, wind and fog can be an additional battle athletes need to face. Furthermore, each location comes with unique currents and water levels, each reacting differently to tough weather conditions.
Wind and rain are catalysts for water current changes, making it harder, or easier, to row in a straight path, whereas fog can create visibility issues.
“If the weathers really bad, like 20 mph winds, then we won’t go out,” sophomore and rower Harper Skey said. “We in stead do rowing machines and weights on land.”
As a result of extreme weather factors, many athletes end up altering their pregame routines and rituals.
“When the weather is bad we do more warmups on land,” Skey said.
Athletes turn to workouts on rowing machines and the weightroom, utilizing treadmills for when the conditions are poor. Having on land equipment becomes an important factor for rowers, as some teams don’t have access to indoor devices, handicapping those who live in rougher conditions, regardless of the season.
Similar to rowing, wind tremendously affects tennis matches, and thus a player’s strategy and mentality. Fierce winds can affect how the ball carries, making it harder to control serves and rallies. Rain dampens the ball, affecting how the ball comes off the racket. Players have to play with more margin for error and ball spin, or else the wind can take over quickly. This intensifies the mental battle along with the physical.
“Playing in bad weather primarily affects the mental side of my game, “ sophomore and tennis player Thomas Li said. “It is easy to get caught up with what you can’t control instead of focusing on the things you can control.”
Hard, clay and grass courts each present quite the challenge when the ground is wet. Grass and clay courts become the most slippery under the rain, causing limited mobility, increasing the margin of error when hitting the ball and placing athletes at a higher risk of injury.
Not all weather factors have direct negative consequences, as conditions such as air humidity can positively impact aspects of the game. On clay courts, the extra moisture in the air keeps the surface soft and cohesive, allowing athletes to be more mobile within the court. Additionally, the air will make the ball heavier, slowing the ball down and forcing players to emphasize ball placement rather than power.
Cold weather plays a key role in warm-ups and pregame stretching. Athletes can face an increased risk of cramping and don’t have the same amount of flexibility as in a warmer weather game. For baseball player and senior Coco Vonderhaar, playing in the cold substantially hinders the level of play.
“Especially in the colder weather, you have to stretch better as, like, a lot of like, athletes will get injured, especially during this time,” Vonderhaar said. “Things like gripping the baseball, gripping the bat, because baseball is kind of like a fast-twitch sport, so you kind of want to be very quick.”
Runner and junior Kailia Leming also notices the downsides of cold weather in fast-twitch sports like track and field.
“You cramp more when you’re in the cold because your muscles aren’t properly warmed up and ready to go,” Leming said. “75, 80 degrees is perfect weather for running, because you run faster when it’s hotter.”
Many sports are limited to playing in certain seasons; this causes an imbalance in the amount of sports spread across different seasons. Paly hosts eight sports in the fall, four sports in the winter, and 10 sports in the spring. The poor conditions in the winter cause a large amount of sports to move to the springtime, which results in different sports having to compete for practice space, creating less playing time for athletes who have to share facilities.
Weather can play a key role in the availability of snow sports, specifically skiing. Living in the Bay Area makes it difficult to make regular trips to a ski location. Finding good conditions doesn’t only affect the enjoyment of skiing, it also affects the safety.
“I would say in general, you only get good [skiing] conditions around once every three weeks during the winter,” junior and skier Hadrien De Martel said. “Last week it was just super icy so it just wasn’t very fun, you couldn’t go off terrain, and it was a big danger as well because you can slip and hit other people.”
Even when conditions are optimal, crowds can often make the skiing experience less appealing.
“Sometimes places like Heavenly had really long lines; long lines can definitely ruin the experience,” De Martel said.
With the effects of global warming in recent years, many outdoor practices and games in the summer have to face extreme heat.
“There was one or two weeks last summer where it was extremely hot, I think it was over 100 degrees at some point,” junior and football player Jake Wang said. “We had to bring tons of water out and limit our reps outside.”
The team had to shorten their practices a lot during the heatwave, which slowed down players’ development.
Weather isn’t just a backdrop for sports. It plays an integral role in how each athlete performs. Athletes constantly have to adapt to the elements that they face. For athletes, they aren’t just preparing for their opponents, but for Mother Nature as well.
