High School Sports Running on Empty

SBJ In-Depth

High school sports running on empty Fewer coaches. Reduced travel. Pay to play. Budget cuts push school districts to find new ways to keep kids in the game. By BILL KING Staff writer Published August 02, 2010 : Page 01 Jim Quatromoni was raised in Hull, Mass., a tiny beach town 20 miles south of Boston, where he played on the same high school basketball team that he now coaches. He remembers the way his stomach turned flips when, in the summer before his junior year in 1989, he heard that the town had pulled its funding of school sports. The local booster club — eight or nine sets of parents, really — raised enough money to keep the programs afloat that year. So it was that Quatromoni, who is also Hull’s athletic director, was quick to come up with a plan last year when the town axed all $265,000 from the high school athletic budget. He mobilized the booster club and the students. He cut costs. A few weeks into the school year, he raised more than $6,000 in sponsorships competing in a triathlon; this less than four months after surgery to resurface a hip. Again, Hull saved sports. The football team upset its nearby rival. The boys soccer team made its first state tournament appearance. With not a penny of public funding, Hull fielded a full complement of sports, serving 223 student athletes, which was four more than the year prior. “I thought it would be one year,” Quatromoni said. “We’ll do this and people will come to their senses. Times will get a little better and we’ll get it fixed. “It was a tough night when it didn’t go through.” On May 17, the voters of Hull rejected athletic funding yet again, denying an override that would have delivered $182,513 of the $286,127 the sports programs would take to operate this school year. And so Quatromoni, the boosters and the students are at it again, parking cars, collecting tolls at the beach, selling squares for a “meadow muffin” raffle, and, yes, running another triathlon, trying to repeat their work of a year ago. “These kids have been fighting for us on these fields for so many years, I don’t know how we can walk away from that. It’s time for us to fight for them.” Jim Quatromoni Hull (Mass.) High School “What I’m afraid of is that people who weren’t in the trenches started feeling like it was business as usual around here,” Quatromoni said. “But it wasn’t and it isn’t. None of us feel we should have to be doing this. But we understand that if we don’t do it, bad things are going to happen.” It is a sentiment voiced at schools in every corner of the country, a concern shared by urban, suburban and rural, in communities both blue collar and white collar. Long an expectation of students and parents, a high school athletic program no longer is a given — or at least a free one isn’t. Schools in at least 43 states will charge students who choose to play sports a participation fee this year, with costs typically ranging from $100 to $150 per sport. Most offer discounts to those who play multiple sports and set a cap for families, but some don’t. With tax rolls shrinking and school budgets bleeding, many of the nation’s harder hit districts have given athletic administrators a choice: Find a new way to fund your program or watch it go away. Cause for concern Up2Us, a New York-based advocacy group that serves as a unifying voice for youth sports organizations, estimates that the nation’s high schools cut at least $2 billion in funding for athletics in 2008-09. While that figure is based on a small and select sample, the researcher who signed off on it, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, assistant professor Brian Greenwood, says he now believes it has grown to “10 times more than that.” In a position paper it began circulating among legislators and other decision-makers late last week — co-signed by Nike, among others — Up2Us presented an overview of what it described as the state of youth sports. In it, the group laid out four goals: To aggregate evidence that linked sports programs to positive behavior; to document the decline of opportunities; to contrast the benefits of youth sports with the risk of their reduction; and to suggest ways to forward youth sports on the national agenda. “It’s a looming crisis that hasn’t gotten much attention nationally,” said Paul Caccamo, executive director of Up2Us, “probably because we’re not used to worrying about whether our kids will have a chance to play.” Examples of budget tightening and their effect on sports  Massachusetts: The Lowell School Committee voted to eliminate freshman boys and girls basketball, freshman baseball and softball, and alpine skiing, cut all 37 remaining assistant coaches and the head spring cheerleading coach, and cut middle school basketball, cross country and volleyball programs.  Mississippi: The Greenville school board eliminated soccer, slow-pitch softball, baseball, tennis, golf and power lifting. The suspensions could be lifted if outside money is raised to support the programs.  Georgia: The Effingham County Board of Education has tentatively agreed to eliminate 41 assistant coaching positions for the 2010-11 fiscal year. The cuts would save the school system $65,000.  Idaho: The Idaho High School Activities Association decreased the number of games and events in which high schools can enter athletes in all sports except those that traditionally generate revenue — football, basketball and volleyball.  Ohio: The Lakota Source: SportsBusiness Journal research Caccamo is quick to stress that this is not an issue for athletes and their parents alone. Sporting goods manufacturers rely on an active society to buy sneakers, balls and bats. The pro sports world relies on high school programs as an early feeder system for talent and, more importantly, a breeding ground for fans. “It impacts our fan base,” said Peter O’Reilly, vice president of fan strategy and marketing for the NFL. “We have a strategic imperative of getting kids connected to the game at a young age. We know the correlation of kids playing the game and then becoming fans of the game. When you start to cut into the access to play sports and to play football, the prospect of that impacts our fan base over the long haul.” The NFL Youth Football Fund, provided jointly by the league and the NFLPA, last year distributed about $5.2 million in grants to youth organizations and high schools across the country, with more than half of that going to build and refurbish fields. The league estimates it put about $15 million into youth sports and physical education last year — for example, a $1.8 million grant to provide fitness assessments at 1,120 schools in the 32 NFL markets. Two weeks ago in Canton, Ohio, the NFL convened a youth and high school football summit, bringing together more than 100 coaches from 50 states. Before the meetings, organizers asked coaches to provide hot topics to explore. “Economic concerns are high on their list,” said Alexia Gallagher, director of NFL Charities and the NFL Youth Football Fund. “We want to find out from them, on the ground, what’s happening related to budget cuts. … We’re always working to evaluate our programs to see how we can make them better and fit with the changing times.” All the major U.S. sports properties can point to charitable endeavors that benefit youth sports. Many donate millions. While those grants help in pockets of need, Caccamo argues that they would be more effective if they were linked. “Now is the time we have to get together and say, if we want to see this continue, we need to take on a coordinated plan,” Caccamo said. “What I see are a lot of piecemeal plans. NFL Play 60. NBA Cares. MLB has RBI. Everyone has programs. But we need to coordinate around a set of goals. “Nike, a tremendous supporter of ours, can worry later about whether they’re a Nike player or an Adidas player. Let’s right now worry about if they play.” Pay up or don’t play When the director of athletics for the 72 high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District learned that she had to cut $1.4 million from her budget, she ran some quick math and determined that it would mean axing about 700 coaches from 600 teams. “I didn’t want to accept it at first because I realized what a huge hit it would be,” Barbara Fiege said. “We just couldn’t create any more efficiencies and I knew it would start affecting the kids.” Fiege shared the information with a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, whose story ignited support from the sports community in Southern California. The next day, she heard from Anita DeFrantz, president of the LA84 Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to serving youth sports. DeFrantz told her the foundation typically did not work with school districts but would do so in this case, providing a grant of $252,600 and encouraging others to join in. THE FIRST CUT IS THE DEEPEST Despite budget cuts, hardly any high school sports programs have shut down completely or even eliminated specific sports. Instead, they have survived through a combination of private fundraising and cost cuts. The most common cost-savers:  Schedule reductions: Usually 10 percent across most sports, with only two or three revenue producers, such as football and basketball, continuing to play the maximum number of contests allowed.  Travel restrictions: Districts and conferences have realigned in some states to allow schools to eliminate long and expensive bus trips. Many schools are pooling buses, scheduling games in multiple sports for the same date, or even sharing buses with nearby schools headed in the same direction.  Cutting assistant coaches: Less common than scheduling or travel reductions, because coaching stipends in most states are so small that savings are minimal. Still, districts have cut into sports with larger staffs, such as football.  Eliminating athletic directors:Some districts have consolidated oversight of programs, replacing individual school ADs with a district or county AD, aided by assistant principals from the schools.  Eliminating feeder teams: By cutting middle school, freshman and junior varsity teams, schools save on transportation, salaries and equipment while facing less community backlash than if they cut varsity teams. Some middle school and junior high teams have been absorbed by local youth programs, such as YMCAs. — Bill King Through additional contributions from the Dodgers, Chivas USA, Nike, Easton and others, the Los Angeles school district was able to avert coaching cuts, keeping all sports alive for its 35,000 student athletes. There were other reductions, though. The district slashed $650,000 in funding for athletic transportation, which came on top of $335,000 in cuts to that area last year. So even with a full complement of coaches, Los Angeles schools faced another dilemma. They no longer had the money to bus teams to their events. As a result, the district is asking parents to contribute $24 per child for the year — a voluntary donation, not a fee — to cover the cost of ferrying teams to games. “We had no recourse but to ask for contributions from the athletes’ families,” said Fiege, who operates in a district in which 77 percent of students receive free or reduced-price lunch. “We understand there will be some that will not be able to do that based on circumstances. So we’re highly recommending schools do some fundraising to come up with that. Because if they cannot, then we would have no recourse but to eliminate some games on the schedule.” It’s a dilemma facing many schools in tightly pinched districts. They have been able to save coaches, and as a result save teams, but the cost of transportation — typically about $300 per event in Los Angeles, for example — has been problematic. The most common approach toward cuts has been a logical one: Play less often and stay closer to home. Schools have shortened schedules. Teams are sharing buses. Some state associations have changed rules so that schools need not travel as far to play district or conference games. Even after those cuts, many districts have found the only way to continue to offer sports has been to charge a participation fee.  EXAMPLES OF PAY-TO-PLAY COSTS Minnesota offers an example of the fees high school athletes often face across the nation if they want to play a specific sport. Fees rose sharply during the 2008-09 budget year as government budgets felt the sting of the recession. Here are averages from the state: Sport Current cost 2008-09 increase % increase Baseball $210 $100 91% Basketball $230 $120 109% Cross country $210 $100 91% Football $220 $90 69% Gymnastics $220 $110 100% Hockey $230 $100 77% Lacrosse $210 $100 91% Softball $210 $100 91% Soccer $210 $100 91% Swimming/diving $220 $110 100% Track $210 $100 91% Volleyball $210 $100 91% Wrestling $220 $110 100%  HOW HIGH CAN THEY GO? Here are what some specific high schools throughout the nation charge students for playing sports: School Price to play Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School (Mass.) $282 for cross country; $398 for golf; $409 for girls soccer; $508 for field hockey; $969 for football Maynard High School (Mass.) $400 per student athlete North Smithfield High School (R.I.) $175 per sport; $300 for football; $350 for hockey Source: Up2Us Opponents, such as Up2Us, say participation fees stunt participation, pointing to an expected drop of 10 percent for every $100 charged. But tracking by the National Federation of State High School Associations shows participation has remained steady nationally, even as fees have become more common. “What we’re hearing from our membership is that they don’t feel like it’s having a real negative impact,” said Bob Gardner, executive director of the NFHS. “It’s something no one likes to do. But when you look at the budget deficits, it’s something that can raise quite a bit of money.” The state that has been most diligent about monitoring the impact of pay to play is Michigan, where the state high school athletic association has been surveying athletic directors about participation fees since 2003. It was Michigan that first circulated what has been an often regurgitated prediction that athletic participation would drop as fees were implemented. In its most recent survey, the MHSAA found that 221 of 475 schools that responded (47 percent) charged participation fees in 2009-10, a slight increase over the 43 percent that reported charging fees two years ago. Thirty-two percent of those that did not charge fees said they were considering adopting them this year. Only 14 percent of those who charged fees said they saw a drop in participation as a result of it. High school athletic administrators suggest two reasons that the shift toward pay to play hasn’t scared off athletes: n Most schools and districts that charge participation fees offer waivers for students based on need. Typically, those who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch pay no fee or a reduced fee for athletics. n Many parents are accustomed to paying for their children’s athletic endeavors from the time they put on their first soccer, tee-ball or basketball uniform, so paying for the privilege at school doesn’t seem so foreign, especially since for many the cost is far less. Anita DeFrantz, president of the LA84 Foundation, speaks at a conference to rally support behind an effort to help bridge a funding gap for high school sports in California. “We’re not in favor of pay to play,” said Bruce Whitehead, executive director of the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association. “But we understand why it’s starting to happen. It’s another means to solve the financial problem. “The danger with pay to play is, obviously, that student athletes who don’t have the financial resources at home that others do might not be able to participate. Nobody wants that.” At the core of Up2Us’ message is an economic sequence that argues that in the long term, it will cost the nation more to cut school sports than to fund them. It argues that cutting, or charging for, school sports will lead to higher dropout rates, more teen pregnancies and increased teen violence, all of which will lead to higher societal costs. “It’s the only way the schools can see to keep their doors open,” said Shellie Pfohl, executive director of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. “The consequence of this is that the kids that we really need to reach are not going to have the resources to participate. We’ll keep a lot of kids. But we’re really going to see over time a huge negative fallout because the kids that are at most risk for health-related issues — not to mention all the social negatives of school dropout and teen pregnancy and violence — are the kids that are now going to be left out of the equation.” Pfohl, who was appointed in February, brought a background of pairing government with nonprofits and the private sector to promote health education. She said the president’s council can play a similar role for school athletic programs. For example, it could encourage joint-use agreements between stressed districts and parks and recreation departments, as some communities have embraced. It also can put resources behind spreading the message. “We have to help people understand the medium and long-term ramifications of cutting these kinds of programs,” Pfohl said. “Those have to be weighed.” Stepping up Quatromoni thinks back to the steps Hull took to save sports a year ago and groans at the prospect of repeating them. Turnkey Sports Poll The following are results of the Turnkey Sports Poll taken in July. The survey covered more than 1,100 senior-level sports industry executives spanning professional and college sports.  What is the biggest issue or threat to youth sports in America? Cost of participation 39% Inadequate focus on academics 17% Repetitive use injuries 16% Commercialization of youth sports 15% Use of performance-enhancing drugs 5% No response/Not sure 8%  Which of the following youth sports will experience the fastest growth in the next five years? Lacrosse 41% Soccer 20% Basketball 10% Baseball 8% Hockey 5% Golf 3% Football 2% Skateboarding 2% Tennis 2% Snowboarding 1% No response / Not sure 6% Source: Turnkey Sports & Entertainment The first step was to institute participation fees: $200 for the first sport, $150 for the second and $100 for the third, with an individual student cap of $525 and a family cap of $975. Football and hockey players paid a $75 surcharge because their sports cost more to run. The fees generated $54,165. Hull also placed an admission fee on all events for the first time after decades of asking for donations at the gate. That generated $26,490. Replacing paid scorekeepers, timers and other support staff with volunteers saved the school about $14,000. Cutting schedules by as much as 20 percent in some sports, consolidating transportation when possible and delaying some equipment purchases brought the savings to about $33,000. Much of that seems repeatable. But the prospect of repeating the Herculean task of fundraising is daunting. The booster club raised $82,486 last year. Other donors added $29,515. “It’s a tireless group of parents we have here,” Quatromoni said. “But I don’t blame them if they’re getting tired. None of this is a recipe for sustainability. But what do we want to do? Stop? “My wife will kill me for uttering this, but I keep wondering how can I not do this? How can I not chase this down? This isn’t exactly what you sign up for when you get into this world of athletic administration. But these kids have been fighting for us on these fields for so many years, I don’t know how we can walk away from that. “It’s time for us to fight for them.” The first topic we examined in class was why study sports. One of the reasons is sport is the fourth largest industry in the United States. This article should be alarming to anyone who is planning on being a sport manager. The cutting of high school sport budgets will impact the sport industry greatly. As mentioned in the article above, the sporting good industry relies heavily on high school sports to purchase their products.  Reducing budgets may also reduce the amount of athletes that participate in interscholastic sports. A reduction in athletes in high school will eventually affect the professional sports leagues, since professional sports leagues use high school as a feeder system. On page 472 of Sports in Society, Coakley discusses the arguments for and against high school sports. One of the arguments against high school sports is that they deprive educational programs of resources, staff, and community support. The schools that are cutting athletic budgets are buying into that argument against high school sport by choosing to fund education over athletics. It is tough to argue against choosing education over sport, but I believe there is a need for high school sports in American society.