In his second season as Orrick varsity track coach, Kirk Thacker is doing something he didn’t have to do last season: share his athletes with another sport.

Per a change in school district participation policy, student-athletes may play more than one sport each season. Thus, some girls are splitting time between track and field and softball (see related preview).

Thacker is confident he and first-year softball coach Taylor Golden will easily juggle practice time with their dual-sport athletes.

“We can find inventive ways to get our practices in, whether … (that) be morning practice (or otherwise),” he said March 6. “If they have a softball game, I can have mine come in and do morning practice – or vice versa, … they can do morning practice if we have a track meet.”

A history of addressing dual-sport issues fuels Thacker’s confidence. While leading the Norborne Hardin-Central varsity 8-man football program, he worked with athletes who split time between cross country and football, he said.

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