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jlhughes
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Posted: Thu May 21st, 2009 02:49 pm |
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Lake Forest coaches
consider how the change
will affect their sports
By Jamie-Leigh Bissett
The Journal
FELTON — Last Thursday, the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association voted 15-2 to reduce the minimum and maximum number of games high school and middle school sports can play during their season by 10 percent.
Therefore, sports that have a maximum 22-game schedule will lose two games off their schedule next year, while sports that play a maximum of 16 games will lose one game.
The football schedule, however, will remain as is and will not be affected by the change.
According to DIAA executive director Kevin Charles, the ruling is an attempt to “preserve athletic budgets for member schools,” which will likely take a cut along with the entire school budget when the Delaware State Legislature passes its fiscal year 2010 budget on July 1.
Additionally, he said the schedule reductions will prevent schools from having to cut entire programs in order to make ends meet, something the DIAA board was trying to avoid.
“Obviously the board was concerned about the impact schedule reductions would have, but the board felt there would be a greater impact if athletics or a particular sport was cut altogether,” Charles said.
In fact, he said after a group of superintendents met on May 7 to discuss the issue, their recommendation was to cut all sub varsity sports instead. However, Charles said the board did not feel this was the road to follow and instead stuck with schedule reductions.
Moreover, he said the board found it necessary to make the reductions mandatory across the board instead of allowing each school to make its own decision about reducing schedules.
“By letting our member schools do it on their own, it creates a lack of uniformity that the board members were concerned...would create advantages and disadvantages. They felt it was very important...to move as a unit.”
He said reducing schedules by 10 percent will help schools reduce costs in three main areas.
“One of the primary savings is transportation costs. In addition, it will cut the cost of the personnel that actually run the game including officials, score keepers, and ticker tackers. It will also cut the energy it takes to heat, cool, and illuminate games,” Charles said.
Additionally, he said there were a number of reasons the board decided not to reduce the amount of football games.
“Football is a sport that will generate revenue for many member schools. We did a survey and a majority of the schools do make money on football games, money that is used to fund other sports. It didn’t make sense, when you’re trying to maximize your budget, to cut a game that will generate more money than it saves,” Charles said.
He added, “The other thing they looked at is football is a sport which involves the greatest amount of student body participation. Not only do you have football players, but you have the bands, cheerleaders, booster groups; the entire school community is involved and it is an excellent way for schools to connect with community in positive away.”
Charles said while he acknowledges that not everybody will agree with the board’s decision, he compliments the way in which the board handled the situation.
“I don’t have a vote, but as I was sitting there, I thought about which way would I vote. I can see both sides of the issue clearly. There will be valid questions certainly, but I think the board did a good job, and had a very thorough discussion on the issue,” he said.
Meanwhile, now that the change is official, coaches from middle and high schools are contemplating how the reduction will affect their team.
“It will affect the softball team a great deal,” head coach Ryan Pickett said. “The Henlopen is a very competitive conference and it’s very beneficial to play non-conference teams to help prepare for a rigorous conference schedule. It will force us to make tough decisions on which non-conference opponents we will continue to play and which teams we must cut ties with.”
“Schedule reductions could affect many players that have a chance to play in the next level,” girls soccer coach Michelle Kersey said. “Not so much the superstars, but the Division II or III prospects. With having less games, recruiters will have less chances to review players; especially those playing in smaller programs.”
“The reduced schedule will make it harder to build relationships with the student-athletes and leave less time to teach them the sport properly,” W.T. Chipman boys basketball coach John Leach said.
“In golf, the reduction wasn’t really a big deal. I only had 14 competition dates this year anyway and with the tightened budgets...reducing the number of matches makes sense,” golf coach Steve Vansant said.
And though most coaches are not happy about losing a game or two on their schedule, they are relieved that the option to cut sub-varsity, or a program as a whole, is off the table.
“In my opinion getting rid of sub-varsity programs would have been a horrible idea. Middle school sports are really where the athletes get introduced to competitive athletics. I think going out for and playing a middle school sport sparks their interest for high school sports. If they don’t get that opportunity early on they may be intimidated to go out for a sport at the high school level, having never played it competitively before,” Chipman football coach Jeremy Seilheimer said.
“Having no JV would severely affect the quality of the varsity product in the years to come. JV programs are needed to instill fundamentals into young players just coming into the program,” Kersey said.
“Sports is a good outlet for a lot of these kids, and sometimes the only thing keeping them out of trouble. It is also important in their development for varsity programs,” Leach said.
“Cutting JV or middle school teams would hurt in so many ways,” Pickett said. “Those levels are important because it gives more students the opportunity to play, it helps create interest in the sport and they are essential feeder programs for the highest level. If you cut sub-varsity sports, less people would be playing the sports they love and the quality of play at the varsity level would suffer.”
Sports editor Jamie-Leigh Bissett
can be reached at 422-1200 or
jlhughes@newszap.com.
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