Some folks accuse me of hardheadedness.

I know, I know. It’ll take six more cups of coffee before a rational mind can wrap itself around that. Just take my word for it.

Not sure I understand why. Is it because I’ve only voted for one political party in 20 years of checking boxes? Or that my satellite radio is almost always tuned to the 1980s hair metal channel?

Hey, once a year I make it a point to change my mind about something whether the world is ready or not.

This year’s go-tell-your-friends-and-neighbors switcheroo: My stance on crappy weather football games.

And by “crappy,” I mean what you saw when you looked out your window or through your windshield and witnessed at 5 p.m. Friday.

Nothing resembling the tropical storm/monsoon/plague of locusts that your friendly, neighborhood meteorologist forecasted a day earlier in a desperate bid to boost ratings. Let’s say it was more than a drizzle, though.

In response to the doomsday projections, a majority of Maine’s athletic administrators got a jump on reality and postponed Friday night football games by noon.

Twenty-three contests were scheduled for 7 p.m. starts. Only seven were played, and all of them in Cumberland and York counties, where the storm clouds played peek-a-boo and didn’t really open up until it was time to roll the buses.

We walk through this emergency drill at least once a year, on average. For the more-than-half-a-lifetime I’ve been blessed to collect a paycheck for this gig, anyone who’s been paying attention knows where I’ve stood.

To paraphrase the evil sensei from “The Karate Kid,” this is football, not a knitting class. Short of lightning, I’ve never bought any excuse for postponing gridiron activities.

Perhaps it’s because I went off-cycle with my PEDs to make myself eligible for the Dempsey Challenge, but I’m feeling downright mellow on this issue these days.

As in, I acknowledge that there is no easy answer and that it is each school’s individual decision based on myriad factors.

Yes, please hit me. Repeatedly.

The arguments against playing on a rainy night always have rung hollow and self-serving in my ears.

Risk of player and spectator injury is one of those. I’ve never seen any data that tells me a kid is at greater risk playing sports in foul weather than under moonlit skies.

Football is a rough game, period. If anything, a game in the rain might be safer because the coaches keep the playbook and strategy closer to the vest.

Spectator injury? Please. Life is a contact sport. I can break a leg tripping over stuff that my son or my cats leave lying around the house. And every time you leave your house, you run the risk of never coming back. Don’t give me that.

The real reason your school is quick to side with the weatherman is simple mathematics.

Four bucks times 250 crazy fools on a wet Friday night equals $1,000. Four bucks times 750 sun-drenched folk on a Saturday afternoon equals $3,000.

In these sickeningly strapped economic times, I can’t argue with that logic at all. We were told Saturday would be glorious, and they were right.

Then there’s the field factor. Our wealthy friends in Cape Elizabeth, Falmouth and Yarmouth, the Portland schools and Hampden Academy have the luxury of FieldTurf.

The rest of us are slumming it on terra firma.

It’s tough enough to sustain a natural grass field in the declining daylight and extreme temperature swings of October.

Now imagine playing two or three more home games on a surface that’s been ravaged by two Class C teams slugging it out in the rain. If that doesn’t create a safety issue now, it could later.

Of course, the biggest myth of all is that kids love playing football in the rain.

Has anyone taken a poll to confirm this? Because my colleague Randy Whitehouse covered our one tri-county school to brave the elements Friday night. And judging from his story, I’m going out on a limb and saying that the kids from Gray-New Gloucester and Cape Elizabeth thought it was miserable.

Given the choice of having rain fly sideways through their facemasks or deal with the sun in their eyes the next day, I bet you every kid chooses the latter.

That doesn’t make him soft or weak or chicken or any other unfortunate terminology we old-schoolers throw around. It makes him smarter than we used to be.

I’m slowly, reluctantly, wisely following their example.

Just don’t expect it to become a habit.

Kalle Oakes is a staff columnist. His email is [email protected].