GREENVILLE — Weather is always part of the job for a high school athletic director, but Greenville Athletic Director Aaron Shaffer has faced a challenge more typical of spring than the opening weeks of the fall sports season.

Persistent rain has forced cancellations, postponements, and schedule changes for several Green Wave teams, leaving Shaffer, coaches, and others working to find new dates while coordinating facilities, officials, transportation, and workers.

“The truth is, with the weather, there’s not a lot you can do about it,” Shaffer said. “We’re not used to this really in the fall. This is more like a spring phenomenon.”

A passing thunderstorm might normally delay an event or push a Monday contest to Tuesday. This year, however, Greenville has dealt with multiple consecutive days when outdoor competition has been difficult or impossible.

“We’ve lost a soccer scrimmage earlier this week,” Shaffer said. “We lost multiple golf matches.”

Both the boys and girls golf programs have been affected, along with tennis and soccer.

Friday night’s football scrimmage against Milton-Union presented another challenge. The scrimmage originally was scheduled at Milton-Union but was moved to Greenville’s Alumni Stadium, where the artificial turf could handle the wet conditions.

Shaffer said the move was made primarily to help Milton-Union protect its natural-grass field before the regular season begins.

“We have a turf field. They have natural grass,” Shaffer said. “You don’t want to get yourself in a situation where you tear up a natural grass field before your season starts, so it’s just easy to move things here.”

While moving the football scrimmage solved one problem, it created additional work behind the scenes.

A change in location requires far more than telling the two teams where to play. Transportation plans must be changed, workers contacted and visiting teams given information concerning entrances, parking and other logistics.

“When we changed the football game to here, it started with getting all of our people here and then letting transportation know that we’re not needing the buses,” Shaffer said.

Greenville also had to quickly provide Milton-Union with information that normally would have been sent to a visiting opponent earlier in the week.

“Normally we communicate to our opponent on a Monday, not a Friday,” Shaffer said. “Like, ‘Hey, this is where your bus goes. This is where you come in. This is where to park.’ It’s just a lot, but it is part of the gig.”

Rescheduling other sports brings different challenges.

Golf coaches often handle much of the communication because they are working directly with golf courses and know what dates are available. Finding a makeup date means considering the schedules of both schools as well as golf leagues, outings and other activities already scheduled at the courses.

Greenville golfers at least have an option when they cannot get outside.

“We have a simulator and hitting mats, so our kids aren’t doing nothing there,” Shaffer said. “But it’s not what we should be doing right now, and that’s playing golf outside.”

Soccer and other sports can require additional coordination by the athletic department. A postponed contest may mean contacting another athletic director, finding available officials and arranging transportation before a new date can be placed on the schedule.

The immediate problem eventually can create another challenge — squeezing makeup contests into an already busy season.

“Our coaches have all done a great job,” Shaffer said. “Whether it was tennis not being able to run some matches this week, or golf and soccer, they’ve worked hard to get them rescheduled, and we just find a way to squeeze them in. It just makes us real busy here in a week or two.”

Friday’s last-minute football move also meant getting the concession stand and other game-night operations ready at Alumni Stadium.

Shaffer said Greenville’s community and parent volunteers make that part of the job much easier.

“I’ve said it a million times, and it’s the beauty of our community,” Shaffer said. “We put out the call, and, ‘Hey, we’re moving this here, and this is what we’re doing.’ Our people show up.”

Shaffer credited concession workers and Greenville football parents for being willing to help on short notice.

“Once we get the word out, it’s usually not hard to get people here to help us out,” he said.

Despite the headaches caused by the weather, Shaffer takes the disruptions as another part of overseeing a high school athletic program.

“It’s not every year you get rain like we’ve gotten here over the last week or so,” he said. “It is a little unusual.”

With schedules changing quickly, Shaffer encouraged Green Wave fans to use GreenvilleGreenWaveSports.com to keep up with the latest information. The site offers schedules and an associated app, and fans who subscribe to individual teams can receive notifications when changes are announced.

Shaffer hopes that once the weather cooperates, fans will turn their attention from rainouts and rescheduling to supporting Greenville’s student-athletes.

“We’re excited for the fall season and the things to come,” Shaffer said. “Come out and see our kids.”