Athletic Management, 16.2, February/March 2004, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/am/am1602/budgetcuts.htm
If
you're a high school athletic director, you're probably spending this
year trying to make ends meet with a reduced budget. You're not alone.
Here's a quick look at what some schools across the nation are doing to
survive:
Creswell (Ore.) High School may be typical of small
programs. Like many schools that charge pay-to-play fees, it raised the
amount, from $80 to $125. It was the second time in as many years that
the fee went up. "We've really tried to keep our ears open for kids who
can't afford the participation fee and help them out the best we can,"
says Athletic Director Pete Apo. "But our numbers are down a little
bit, and I'm sure part of that is due to the fee increase."
On the
cost-cutting side, the school eliminated a couple of assistant coaching
positions and reduced equipment spending as much as possible. "We've
bought only things deemed necessities," says Apo. "The criteria we used
were safety issues and what the student-athletes needed to compete. The
uniforms are getting a little old-looking, but it's just not in the
budget right now."
On the revenue side, Creswell stepped up its
fund-raising. Located near Eugene, the town is growing as a bedroom
community, and the athletics program landed a $50,000 donation from a
home building company. A golf tournament raised $2,500, a football
tailgate party garnered about $1,100, and a dinner and auction of
locally donated goods and services raised $20,000.
Creswell was
careful about how it distributed its fund-raised dollars. "The teams
don't go out and fund-raise for their own sport," Apo says. "We thought
that might have left a couple behind, not being able to raise the funds
they needed. So all fund-raising money goes into a general fund."
At
Otis High School in north-central Colorado, buttons and gambling trips
for adults are bringing in a little extra money. In the Adopt-a-Bulldog
program--named for the school's mascot--supporters can "adopt" a player
for $10 and get a button, made by a local business, bearing a
student-athlete's picture. Donors could choose any player, but coaches
made sure no player was left out, says Athletic Director Bonnie
Wallin-Kuntz.
"We did it for volleyball, football, and basketball,"
she says. "The proceeds from football went to pay for the kids' state
runner-up patches. The proceeds from basketball will go toward sending
those kids to camps."
To help send the football team to camp, Otis
High's booster club organized a trip to casinos in Black Hawk and
Central, two tiny Colorado towns where gambling is legal. "As long as
you promise to fill them up, the casinos send buses out for free,"
Wallin-Kuntz says. "It costs people $20 to ride, and they each get a
$10 coupon for the casino. The $20 per person goes directly to the
football program. However, the school doesn't have anything to do with
it because it is a form of gambling. It is a booster activity."
Not
far away, Peetz High School, a school of 68 students near the Nebraska
state line, has avoided charging pay-to-play fees through the help of
various fund-raisers. Many of its efforts are typical of schools across
the country--candy and fruit sales, long-shot contests during
basketball games, class dinners at games--but it also stages a
used-jersey sale and a pick-up basketball tournament for the vertically
challenged.
Peetz ran out of room for storing old jerseys, some
dating back to the 1960s, so it sold them to alumni. Then it began
offering football players the jerseys they were wearing during their
high school careers--both road and home versions--as keepsakes. When a
student joins the team, he picks a jersey number (ordered fresh if it's
not in stock) and upon graduation, may buy the home and road jerseys
for $25 each. The money helps defray the cost of new
uniforms.
Another attention-getting fund-raiser is a spring
basketball tournament with the goals lowered a foot from regulation
height. "We have two gyms here and in our smaller gym we lower the
baskets to nine feet and we charge each team about $150 to $200 to get
in the tournament," Head Football Coach Scott Sorensen says. "We have
eight or nine teams in there and we buy T-shirts for the champions and
second-place teams."
Dunking for non-dunkers is the attraction.
"You'd be amazed at how many people in the world can dunk at nine feet
but can't dunk 10. It's just one of those plateaus that short
five-foot-five guys can never reach," Sorensen says. "Some of it is
very funny--guys 35 years old, a little bit overweight and still
thinking they can pin the ball up there against the rim--it about kills
'em."
Near the other end of the enrollment spectrum, the school
district of Hillsborough County, Fla., which comprises much of the
Tampa metropolitan area and is the nation's 10th largest public school
system, has been coping with a 16 percent reduction in district
funding. It has survived through a combination of cost-saving measures,
says Vernon Korhn, who directs the centralized athletics administration
for the high schools and middle schools.
These include: having one
police officer at games instead of the customary two; reducing security
at football games when smaller crowds are expected; having teams make
do with old uniforms for at least another year; and cutting out meal
money for student-athletes on extended trips, an expense many booster
clubs picked up.
But the biggest item was rearranging schedules so
that many contests started an hour or two later. This, Korhn says,
meant that schools could use district buses to transport
student-athletes to away games rather than hiring private buses, with
the exception of long trips out of the area for playoffs. The savings
far offset the extra hourly pay needed for district-employed
drivers.
"Because our school buses were involved in transporting
kids after school, they weren't generally available until about 5
o'clock," Korhn explains. "When we used commercial buses, it got
expensive. But district drivers get a flat rate for overtime and per
mile, so it's considerably less than a commercial bus." Korhn adds that
all but one of the district's 23 high schools have lighted outdoor
facilities, so later starts did not result in more games called due to
darkness.
"Right now we're anticipating holding our own, and I just
hope that things get better economically, not only in Florida, but
nationwide," says Korhn. "That has a direct impact on what happens to
our athletic program here in Hillsborough County."