--- Advertisement ---

Special Report: Athletic Cuts
08/14/08 - 05:02 PM
 RSS Feed

Stephen Gunter - bio

click for larger image Bay County, Fla:

Can you imagine an empty football field at Tommy Oliver stadium on a Friday night in September?

Yes it’s hard to imagine, and probably will never happen, but with budget cuts effecting education, you know athletics will have to take some of the punishment as well, but how much pressure will sports feel?

“We are concerned about our athletics, and basically here in Jackson County, our athletic programs are self sufficient. We’re fortunate here in Jackson County that we’re not going to see very many changes,” said Jackson County Superintendent Daniel Sims.

“You have to tighten your belt a little bit, but we are going to offer all the sports we’ve always had and we are going to try and put the top notch teams there and give them the caliber of uniforms and let them travel in style. We’re just going to do the best we can,” said Bay High School athletic director Glenn Manley.

It may be a time of concern for panhandle high school and middle school athletic programs due to budget cuts, but it’s not a time to hit the panic button.

Budget cuts on the district level should have little impact on your favorite game, that you may be able to notice.

The funds for teaching supplements have been reduced by 19.4% this school year, so you’ll see a few changes in the coaching circle.

“What they have done is cut some assistant coaching positions out of there. I know all of them have at least cut an assistant position in football and what they’re hoping to do is rely a lot on volunteers to come forth and help out in the program,” said Bay District Schools athletic director Tommy St. Amant.

Since athletic programs are mostly funded through boosters and ticket sales, most sports will always seem to have funds, but that’s not stopping coaches from finding ways to trim what they can. 

“We’ve been lucky enough, that some of our squads are small enough, that we can take vans instead of riding the school bus which is a lot cheaper. We try not to go more than 40 or 50 miles away,” Manley stated.

“Our transportation within our district, our buses, they charge $15 an hour for the bus driver, and then a $1.75 per mile. So you can see, when you go over 225, 230 miles, and then the bus driver is there with you six to eight hours, it gets pretty expensive to do that, and that’s just for one bus.
It is a significant decrease in transportation cost when you can take a van or a private vehicle,” said St. Amant.

Athletic programs might have to tighten their belts a little bit from time to time because of the cuts, but with the backing of booster clubs, athletics will always be given the chance to breath.

“If it weren’t for booster clubs, it would be hard for us to survive in a lot of ways. They give us things that we can’t always come up with. Can’t say enough for booster clubs, because they fund what we can’t get from the county,” said Manley.

“We’ve been very fortunate in Jackson County, that our local communities support our teams. They do that in a lot of different ways. One way is to fill the stadium on Friday night, or fill the gym at a basketball game or a baseball game, softball. Gate receipts are a major part of our revenue and we count on that,” said Sims.
“Without boosters, it would be very hard for our teams to function properly. I know some of our sports; our booster clubs will probably fund 80% of their budget. Normally what a coach will do is they’ll get with the booster clubs and they’ll come up with a budget. They’ll look at what they need to raise this year to fund their program as they want it to be funded,” said St. Amant.

With boosters and revenue created from ticket sales leading the way to fund athletics, St. Amant says it also doesn’t hurt when the coaches will fight to keep athletics afloat.

“The thing about our athletic directors and coaches is that they are very creative and flexible and even though the budget is down, they find ways to make things work and they are very good and doing that,” stated St. Amant.

“Our coaches in this county are great innovators, in that they will find a way to make that sport happen. If the cuts keep coming, they may not be going as far to play somebody, but they will be working on things to do,” said Manley.

Superintendent Sims says due to budget cuts and increased fuel costs, you’ll find many sports programs trying to stay as close to home as possible, even if it means playing a larger school. 

This entry has been viewed 2240 times.

User Comments
WMBB.com requires that you be a registered site member to post comments and content.
Why Register?
First, we are not being sneaky and gathering your email or other information to sell to telemarketers or e-mail spam companies.

Registration on this site is required simply to allow us to keep people who would post discriminatory, threatening and harassing messages and comments from doing it again.

By having user registration, we hope to provide you with a better user experience. Please view WMBB.com's full Terms & Conditions