The athletics department has decided to eliminate Wednesday as a practice day but add half an hour of playing time to all other days except Friday during the midterms testing week.

The old schedule allotted an hour each day for practicing Monday through Thursday, with no practice on Friday.

“From an athletic standpoint, an hour when you take into consideration for a team who has to warm up just wasn’t a lot of time to get anything productive done,” Athletic Director Matt LaCour said. “That was the first issue. Number two, I thought that we were wasting student athletes’ time on Wednesday having them drive from wherever they lived, which from our estimation was approximately half an hour each way.”

Although an extra 30 minutes was added to each of the other practices during the week, students will save time because of less driving, LaCour said.

The coaches brought the issue to LaCour in order to present it at a staff meeting.

“We want to be more efficient and make it easier on the schedules of the student athletes,” LaCour said. “Those are the two objectives, nothing else.”

Only winter sports like basketball, soccer and wrestling are affected by this policy change.

All other sports are mandated not to practice during the testing time.

There will be no games this year during mid-year assessment testing days.