HUT, HUT, $$$$$$$
(Jeff Graham/ Huff
Post/Marquette Mining Journal/Frazer Chronicle)
Going, going, gone, or so tax advocates say, you know those groups
that use as a corner-stone of their fair and reasonable platform on taxation
issues. Like politicians, these jokers have never see a proposed tax, or an
existing tax that they didn’t want to cut down, or abolish all-together. I hate
to have to admit it, but on this particular issue, I gotta sit in their “camp.”
What would make me, a reputed flaming liberal cross over into the
conservative side of at least this issue? What is the issue…..how high school
athletics are funded throughout America. I know, I know, most of you know that
I am a dyed in the wool sports nut. If it doesn’t take air, (basketballs, and
footballs) or if wood can’t hit horsehide, its worthless right, well, I hate to
admit it, but sports costs, and how those costs are paid for has always been a
tough and touchy issue for me.
The time and effort that educators spend on creating funding for their
extracurricular activities is at the very least commendable. Of course many of
the programs for high school students aren’t really for the kids at all; it’s
for the teachers that create them. Through these programs they “teachers”
continue living their dreams’ and that’s okay, I have absolutely no problem
with that attitude.
Athletic facilities, football stadiums, baseball fields and gymnasiums
are built with taxpayer money and whatever donations can be obtained during
construction. Once these facilities are in place, they should be used not only
by high school students first and foremost, but by whomever else would like to
shoot baskets, or swim in the pool, or try and hit a baseball over a ball
diamonds fence. But student and school activities should always come first.
The first thing on the cutting block whenever school districts run
short of funding is extracurricular programs, band, choir, and athletic
programs. Sometimes the tactic is a scare tactic, everybody knows it, and
sometimes it works. It’s less than an honorable way for school districts to get
what they want, yet if all else fails.
The time that a school’s Athletic Director spends on raising outside
funds to continue the sports programs is a full time job, yet most of these
people are also full time teachers. The effort necessary for these people to
accomplish their bottom line is herculean, and whatever extra money they might
get is definitely not enough.
MOST EXPENSIVE SPORTS PROGRAM:
Football is definitely the costliest of the high school sports
programs offered; it can cost as much as $1000 to completely outfit a player.
Taking a modest figure, say $500, multiply that by 40 players and your getting
into pretty reified air, say $20,000. Add in travel costs, maintenance and
upkeep of the playing facility, insurances, coach’s pay and whatever other
miscellaneous that are incurred, well, it’s not long before an operational
budget gets up to a hundred grand real quick…..at the minimum.
What does football mean to a community, what are the benefits to those
in attendance, and more important, is the teaching tool for the student
athletes worth the time, effort, and the money? The answers to these questions
aren’t arrived at quite as fast as a running back that can do a 10 second flat
100 yard dash, but they can be ferreted out if you look long enough.
Of course a school’s football program, basketball, baseball, hockey
and even track, which “I hated in school,” are worth the price. We collectively
just have to find a better way to fund them. I agree with the folks who talk
about teacher paychecks at the end of the day as being way too inflated. I do
however also realize that a teacher…..of our children is of utmost importance
to us, to our cities, to our states, and in the end, to our country.
When that much importance is placed on an education, those people that
administer the programs that are offered to students need to be “all
encompassing,” they need to be strong building blocks in our kid’s lives.
Culture isn’t just for the nerds, the rich kids, or kids with professional
parents, culture, reading, theater, and the classics must be nurtured by
teachers for all students.
Sure football games are more fun to watch, but the debate team needs
the same kind of monitory support proportionately as football. The money sports
have always been football and basketball, they fund most of the rest of the
extracurricular programs, and I really don’t know how to get around that fact.
However, it appears that a new approach is going to be necessary in
the not too distant future, so why not start right now…..today. I have a novel
idea, all after school programs need to support themselves. A debate
team sells tickets to their function, a Chess club match…..$5 admission, band
and choir, part of the football program and baseball, advertising on outfield
wall-signs.
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