Milford coaches consider
how the change will
affect their sports
By Jamie-Leigh Bissett
Milford Chronicle
MILFORD — 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 games including officials, score keepers, and ticket-tackers. It will also cut the energy it takes to heat, cool, and illuminate games,” Charles said.
In terms of keeping football schedules as is, he said there were a number of reasons for this decision.
“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.
Head track and field and cross country coach Czar Bloom said he believes the reduction will have some impact on his sports.
“We may have to eliminate an invitational from our cross country or track schedule. In our sport, invitationals do a wonderful job in preparing our athletes for the big ‘invitational-style’ championship meets at the end of the season.”
Amanda Jacona, head field hockey coach at the high school, said the change will affect her team’s strength of schedule. “Since in the Henlopen Conference we must play all the North and South teams, that only leaves three games outside (of the conference) and for field hockey we try to pick up a team with a strong schedule to help us in the long run. Now if we need to drop one or two games that really only leaves us playing the Henlopen Conference,” she said. But other coaches don’t believe losing one or two games will have that much of an impact on their schedule.
“We normally have 16 games in soccer. Losing one game does not make that much of a difference in my mind. It is just a lost opportunity for our athletes,” boys soccer coach Ken Outten said.
“The reduction of games for lacrosse should have little to no impact on Milford. We still have to play 14 games to be qualified for the (state) tournament,” lacrosse coach Tom Pickard said.
“The dropping of a couple of basketball games and softball games will not do anything to change our approaches to teaching/ coaching. We will still need to prepare our teams for the other 18 or so games, although the regular season will be a little bit shorter. And, since everyone else is going to play the same number of games, no one is at either an advantage or a disadvantage,” head softball and girls basketball coach Charlie Darling said.
And whether the change will have a large or small impact on any given sport, it seems most of the coaches are not exactly thrilled to lose a game or two. However, they are nevertheless relieved the superintendents’ suggestion to cut sub- varsity programs or the possibility of losing a program altogether is off the table.
“I’d rather not see any teams cut, so if everyone needs to make concessions in this budget crisis, I guess this is the fairest way possible,” Bloom said.
“I would rather see us reduce schedules than lose programs! We all know that we are in a budget crunch, however it is important to keep sports and other extracurricular activities for our students,” Jacona said.
“You can look at it as a half full or half empty situation. It’s a shame they had to do such a thing, but at least all the sports are still there for the kids to participate in,” girls tennis coach Jason Blanshine said.
“Saving the sub-varsity teams is way better than playing a full varsity schedule since dropping the sub-varsity teams would have meant that many kids would have had to be dumped out of high school athletics,” Darling said.
And while some coaches, like Outten, believe that “any money that can be saved should be,” other coaches, like Pickard, aren’t sure the change will make that much of a difference financially.
“I do not think reducing the schedules will save most school districts enough money to be worthwhile. I do not have any stats to back my feeling up, but it is just a gut feeling,” he said.
However, Pickard added that at least the change is across the board.
“The DIAA action was more fair because the reduction...forces all the schools, no matter their financial status, to do it. If it were left up to the individual schools, the only schools that would reduce their schedules would be the smaller, less wealthy schools.”
Now, with the change officially in the rulebooks, Jacona said, “Only time will tell what the true outcome will be,” for each Milford sports program.
Sports editor Jamie-Leigh Bissett
can be reached at 422-1200 or
jlhughes@newszap.com.
Last edited on Thu May 21st, 2009 02:44 pm by jlhughes
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