souza12
Sophomore Member
Posts: 179
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Post by souza12 on Jul 6, 2014 18:23:04 GMT -6
I originally had an entire rant carried out about it, but I am more interested as to how other people felt about it.
Personally, I feel it is morally and ethically wrong to do. Personal experience, charging kids to play a sport in which you collect gate from and get business at the snack bar from their efforts is wrong. Never in a million years would I say that they should be paid for their efforts, but they should definitely not be charged money, to make additional money, for the _____________ (I would say school, but I honestly had no idea where the money went)
Thoughts?
I understand perhaps a little random, just something I started thinking about.
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mc140
Sophomore Member
Posts: 207
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Post by mc140 on Jul 6, 2014 19:00:05 GMT -6
A lot of schools in our more well off areas charge anywhere from 120-200 per sport.
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Post by Chris Clement on Jul 6, 2014 19:12:50 GMT -6
I originally had an entire rant carried out about it, but I am more interested as to how other people felt about it. Personally, I feel it is morally and ethically wrong to do. Personal experience, charging kids to play a sport in which you collect gate from and get business at the snack bar from their efforts is wrong. Never in a million years would I say that they should be paid for their efforts, but they should definitely not be charged money, to make additional money, for the _____________ (I would say school, but I honestly had no idea where the money went) Thoughts? I understand perhaps a little random, just something I started thinking about. Do your teams turn a profit?
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Post by carookie on Jul 6, 2014 20:03:27 GMT -6
A lot of schools in our more well off areas charge anywhere from 120-200 per sport. Shoot, I was at a school once where each kid had to pay $100+ for a general athletics fee, then $50 per sport (this was a district & school policy). Then for football we charged about $90 for the offseason s,c,&wt programs; then an additional $250 for out of state camp (this was our program charging the fee). If a kid couldn't swing it then they found scholarship $ for him. Crazy thing was part of the $ went to pay coaches.
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Post by macdiiddy on Jul 6, 2014 20:04:10 GMT -6
I know our Athletic Department does not turn a profit.
Someone has to pay the refs, up keep the facilities, pay for bus drivers, busses gas, electricity for lights, uniforms, sport equipment, coaches stipends, etc.
Anything a school can do to help supplement the big cost it takes to run an athletic program. If the money isn't going to come from athletic fee's where is it going to come from?
With all that being said, if they can't afford it, we work with them. Normally they work off their athletic fee by working the concession stand in the off season or doing something during the summer for the athletic department.
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biggus3
Sophomore Member
Posts: 178
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Post by biggus3 on Jul 6, 2014 22:39:24 GMT -6
Our gate money goes back to the school district general fund... aka we are paying redo our rivals locker room right now. Our concession money goes back to the athletic department. A different group in the school works the concessions at our Games each week and keeps a percentage. So that doesn't help us.
We had a huge thread talking about fundraising and how bloated our staff is... I spend the majority of summer fund raising, so yes I would love pay to play for this reason. If we could get all of the other activities like band, lacrosse, wrestling, and all of the girls sports to stop leaching off the money that football and basketball brings in, I could fundraise the cost for our boys down to zero, profit a few hundred grand to buy equipment and put some away for facilities each year, and we would be golden. Those programs don't do Jack s..t to help themselves, and the athletic dept magically grants their every request. Meanwhile, i have to give a handy to every business owner in town to buy socks and pay our dinosaur coaching staff. Our AD is a joke, does things entirely backwards, and I duck him at every turn because I would inevitably tell him off and get fired.
Rant over...
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Post by spreadpowero on Jul 7, 2014 10:10:19 GMT -6
If we did this, we would have to shut down our athletic program because most of our players couldn't afford it.
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Post by fantom on Jul 7, 2014 10:17:01 GMT -6
O Our AD is a joke, does things entirely backwards, and I duck him at every turn because I would inevitably tell him off and get fired. You say that like it would be a negative thing.
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Post by freezeoption on Jul 7, 2014 11:40:48 GMT -6
I've only been at one school that kids had to pay to play, and that was back in 1991. Kids paid about 100 per sport. Kids had to buy their own jersey. Had to buy a activity card also. When all said and done it was about 250 for the first year, but they could reuse their jersey every year so that saved them.
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Post by airraider on Jul 7, 2014 11:47:00 GMT -6
I think Calvary Baptists, which is the "new" Evangel Christian charges their players $300... that's on top of their tuition.
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Post by larrymoe on Jul 7, 2014 11:53:12 GMT -6
Our gate money goes back to the school district general fund... aka we are paying redo our rivals locker room right now. Our concession money goes back to the athletic department. A different group in the school works the concessions at our Games each week and keeps a percentage. So that doesn't help us. We had a huge thread talking about fundraising and how bloated our staff is... I spend the majority of summer fund raising, so yes I would love pay to play for this reason. If we could get all of the other activities like band, lacrosse, wrestling, and all of the girls sports to stop leaching off the money that football and basketball brings in, I could fundraise the cost for our boys down to zero, profit a few hundred grand to buy equipment and put some away for facilities each year, and we would be golden. Those programs don't do Jack s..t to help themselves, and the athletic dept magically grants their every request. Meanwhile, i have to give a handy to every business owner in town to buy socks and pay our dinosaur coaching staff. Our AD is a joke, does things entirely backwards, and I duck him at every turn because I would inevitably tell him off and get fired. Rant over... Seriously, do something about it or quit bitching about it. You're part of the solution or part of the problem.
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Post by hsrose on Jul 7, 2014 12:56:16 GMT -6
I've always been envious of you guys that had district/school funding. It wasn't until this past year that I got to coach at a school that didn't have a pay to play, and I'm not sure of that, they may have a minimal fee/donation level. I spent 8 years in schools where the district didn't cover anything but the safety equipment - buying and reconditioning helmets and shoulder pads. That was it, everything else was raised by the players or boosters (which were usually athletics boosters, not football). The coaches stipends, because they couldn't be paid for by students or by boosters came from the pay to play 'donation'. That was also supposed to cover the ref's, any league/section/state fees, field fees, etc. One school I was at the pay to play ranged from $325-$475. That's per player, per season.
The truth is that money makes all this happen, and it either comes from the district, the boosters, or the kids. So, kick back, put your feet up, and think about what your team would have to do if your district/school didn't fund anything except for the safety gear and everything else had to come from team fund raising. And that coaches stipends could not come from boosters or team fundraising.
Want to take a bus to the away game? You may as well rent a coach bus because the difference in cost between the district bus and the coach bus was generally only a couple hundred dollars. Yeah, if you go with the district bus that's a lot of fun because now you are into the union rules and hours and OT and all that. Want 2 different pairs of game pants, go earn the money. Want new chin straps, mouthpieces, practice jerseys, helmet bolts, tape, cones? Go earn the money. Need to replace the pads on the sled, buy new water jugs, replace some footballs, get some socks? Go earn the money.
Gate typically went to the general athletic fund/AD, concessions when to one of the clubs that wanted to do it. Or boosters in some places like where I am now. Want to see some fun? Watch what happens when the AD ok's a popcorn vendor to setup shop next to the snack shack. The popcorn money is split with the AD and vendor, boosters looses out. Not a pretty sight. Advertiser signs on the fences, that generally goes to the AD, he works the deals and keeps the money.
If you are in a district that funds the sports, fully funds the sports, and then requires a pay to play on top of that, then yeah, I can see an issue. But if district doesn't fund the teams then pay to play is just another cash source. Know what we used to call the 4th team TE? Cash flow. He wasn't likely to see the field, but he still did pay to play or sold cards or tickets or programs or something so he was cash flow.
California is also an area where the schools try to get on-campus coaches, but it is not a requirement that coaches have to be a teacher to coach. One school I was at 2 years ago none of the coaches were on-campus. I've never been on campus and I'm going on 10 years at the HS level. The staff I'm on right now is probably 25% (4/12) on campus.
Every place is different. Most schools I know live by the pay to play, they don't have any other option.
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Post by freezeoption on Jul 7, 2014 12:57:51 GMT -6
You can complain all you want, but this is how it is. When I was in school, our wrestling team was better than the bball team. We probably brought in the same or around the same as bball. I would say now they are not. There may come a time when you might have to rely on another sport for funding. Most schools make their money from bball and football, but some may pull in a decent number. I don't know how you expect sports that have few athletes, or unpopular sports, or maybe bad facilities keep people from games, pay for themselves. XC is a good example. You have to really want to be there for that one.
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biggus3
Sophomore Member
Posts: 178
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Post by biggus3 on Jul 7, 2014 13:16:33 GMT -6
O Our AD is a joke, does things entirely backwards, and I duck him at every turn because I would inevitably tell him off and get fired. You say that like it would be a negative thing. I thought you were the mod that started the thread encouraging civility between the members of this board? It is kind of hypocritical to come at me and suggest that I should be fired because I'm critical of my school district and admins. We keep stressing on this board on how important those things are to a successful program, I'm just highlighting how much it sucks when that is not the case at a school. Larrymoe always shoots me straight and says shut up or do something about it. Being that I'm just a lowly asst, I should just find a new place to coach. Since I'm not going to do that, I do shut up and play the hand I am dealt AT WORK. On the discussion board, however, it seems like that is an appropriate place to discuss some of the more controversial topics in hs sports. Being that football financing is one of my few areas of expertise, I feel like I can weigh in. If you want new members with some alternative viewpoints to post here keeping your board alive, I wouldn't come at them like that. Otherwise it is the same 10 guys recycling the same material, creating their own bubble of what they feel football should be like.
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Post by fantom on Jul 7, 2014 13:24:48 GMT -6
You say that like it would be a negative thing. I thought you were the mod that started the thread encouraging civility between the members of this board? It is kind of hypocritical to come at me and suggest that I should be fired because I'm critical of my school district and admins. We keep stressing on this board on how important those things are to a successful program, I'm just highlighting how much it sucks when that is not the case at a school. Larrymoe always shoots me straight and says shut up or do something about it. Being that I'm just a lowly asst, I should just find a new place to coach. Since I'm not going to do that, I do shut up and play the hand I am dealt AT WORK. On the discussion board, however, it seems like that is an appropriate place to discuss some of the more controversial topics in hs sports. Being that football financing is one of my few areas of expertise, I feel like I can weigh in. If you want new members with some alternative viewpoints to post here keeping your board alive, I wouldn't come at them like that. Otherwise it is the same 10 guys recycling the same material, creating their own bubble of what they feel football should be like. Read it again. I didn't say that you should be fired. I said that getting fired from that asylum wouldn't necessarily be the worst thing that could happen.
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Post by fballcoachg on Jul 7, 2014 13:54:16 GMT -6
You say that like it would be a negative thing. I thought you were the mod that started the thread encouraging civility between the members of this board? It is kind of hypocritical to come at me and suggest that I should be fired because I'm critical of my school district and admins. We keep stressing on this board on how important those things are to a successful program, I'm just highlighting how much it sucks when that is not the case at a school. Larrymoe always shoots me straight and says shut up or do something about it. Being that I'm just a lowly asst, I should just find a new place to coach. Since I'm not going to do that, I do shut up and play the hand I am dealt AT WORK. On the discussion board, however, it seems like that is an appropriate place to discuss some of the more controversial topics in hs sports. Being that football financing is one of my few areas of expertise, I feel like I can weigh in. If you want new members with some alternative viewpoints to post here keeping your board alive, I wouldn't come at them like that. Otherwise it is the same 10 guys recycling the same material, creating their own bubble of what they feel football should be like. I doubt anyone that read that interpreted it the way you did. In know way did that sound like, since you are critical you should be fired. Don't take things so personal, he is saying if your job is terrible the trade off may be worth it. As far as pay to play goes, yes it sucks but it beats not having sports. Do I think it is the best thing, absolutely not but sometimes the funding literally isn't there. I do believe that each sport should be responsible for funding itself in these situations and have separate accounts however when an admin gets a call from Timmy Tennis' mom complaining about the new uniforms and charter bus the bowling team uses the admin is going to change that policy real quick. Number one objective of many admin when it comes to extra curricular events is to not add phone calls to their desks. Unfortunately the district will never cut unnecessary admin positions/central office positions, they can always threaten and use sports as a chip because at most schools it is a minority of students that are affected.
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biggus3
Sophomore Member
Posts: 178
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Post by biggus3 on Jul 7, 2014 14:01:58 GMT -6
You can complain all you want, but this is how it is. When I was in school, our wrestling team was better than the bball team. We probably brought in the same or around the same as bball. I would say now they are not. There may come a time when you might have to rely on another sport for funding. Most schools make their money from bball and football, but some may pull in a decent number. I don't know how you expect sports that have few athletes, or unpopular sports, or maybe bad facilities keep people from games, pay for themselves. XC is a good example. You have to really want to be there for that one. If you are going to have a hs activity, I don't think that it is unreasonable to expect them to have a long term plan to sustainably fund their organization. If it costs x amount of dollars for unis, balls, bussing, whatever, it should be understood that you are going to pay for those things by either fees or fundraising. The issue at our school is that we have an activities dept not an athletic dept. so when there are 20 kids in a Chinese club and they want to go to some exhibit for 20 bucks a head, have their kids eat and get out there on the activities dept's dime, it totals a couple grand. multiply that by 27 similar groups and our entire activities budget is eaten up before any sports team has gotten a new uniform. The AD at our school recognizes that his only revenue source is the concessions, so while we do our best to pack our stadium by putting a decent team out there, the Bass fishing club is working the concessions taking all the money that we generate from our fans. He should just tell them to go out and slang some cookie dough like every other sport in America rather than rely on the football team to cover them. I understand and that there are some major capital expenses that certain groups will never be able to afford that the activities dept should help out on. For example our band needed like 100 new marching unis, that we're $750 bucks a piece. The AD and the band director should find a way to put away some money for when that expense occurs. This never happens at my school, so we are in a constant state of panic as to how we afford those things. When the AD tells me how broke his dept is, I really don't care. You had ten years to plan for new uniforms. It seems like a combination of 10 years of fundraising, fees and planning would have worked. That is what an AD does right? the bottom line is communism sucks. There is a reason pro ball players make so much money and the world champion handball player has to pay his way to the tournament. The same should be true in high school.
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biggus3
Sophomore Member
Posts: 178
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Post by biggus3 on Jul 7, 2014 14:07:20 GMT -6
I thought you were the mod that started the thread encouraging civility between the members of this board? It is kind of hypocritical to come at me and suggest that I should be fired because I'm critical of my school district and admins. We keep stressing on this board on how important those things are to a successful program, I'm just highlighting how much it sucks when that is not the case at a school. Larrymoe always shoots me straight and says shut up or do something about it. Being that I'm just a lowly asst, I should just find a new place to coach. Since I'm not going to do that, I do shut up and play the hand I am dealt AT WORK. On the discussion board, however, it seems like that is an appropriate place to discuss some of the more controversial topics in hs sports. Being that football financing is one of my few areas of expertise, I feel like I can weigh in. If you want new members with some alternative viewpoints to post here keeping your board alive, I wouldn't come at them like that. Otherwise it is the same 10 guys recycling the same material, creating their own bubble of what they feel football should be like. Read it again. I didn't say that you should be fired. I said that getting fired from that asylum wouldn't necessarily be the worst thing that could happen. Haha you're right. I get all wound up from this topic and immediately get defensive. I apologize for being an idiot.
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Post by freezeoption on Jul 7, 2014 14:25:34 GMT -6
Yes, it would be ideal for each sport to fund themselves. I think this can happen in some circumstances. Activities and athletics should be separate, I would push for that to happen, at least get the notion going. I have worked in big schools and small schools. The good schools are the one with the budget for each sport and planning and rotation. A band instructor should never come up and say I need band uniforms now, unless they are short a few, in that case go with something simple for the drumline and use their unis. Uniforms should be on a rotation. Pay to play has been around for a while and it will always will be. All I know, after hearing some of the crap on here, there is no way I would be in some of those schools.
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Post by coachd5085 on Jul 7, 2014 14:31:06 GMT -6
the bottom line is communism sucks. There is a reason pro ball players make so much money and the world champion handball player has to pay his way to the tournament. The same should be true in high school. Couldn't disagree with you more regarding the underlined/highlighted portion.
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biggus3
Sophomore Member
Posts: 178
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Post by biggus3 on Jul 7, 2014 17:20:06 GMT -6
the bottom line is communism sucks. There is a reason pro ball players make so much money and the world champion handball player has to pay his way to the tournament. The same should be true in high school. Couldn't disagree with you more regarding the underlined/highlighted portion. I guess that is a little extreme. Not everyone can/wants to be a football/basketball player, and those other programs do add a valuable component to the hs experience for those kids. What I vehemently disagree with at least at our school is that football ends up being pay to play, while many other programs have little to no responsibility to contribute to the activities budget. Either be a strong dept and set up a system where every cost is covered for every program, or tell us all to go to hell and find money on our own. To pick and choose which programs get to be on the dole seems like the worst way to go about it to me.
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Post by larrymoe on Jul 7, 2014 22:22:45 GMT -6
The issue I don't think you get is that by continuing to do it, you're basically endorsing it. You may not say anything at work, which is precisely the place you should say something about it. Otherwise you're just getting on a website to bitch about something that is entirely, 1000% within your control.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2014 0:26:20 GMT -6
I've never worked at a school that does this and I hope I never will, though it's an unfortunate economic reality that this is probably the only way many schools can or will be able to sustain a football team in the future.
If any of the schools I've ever attended or coached at tried this, they'd have to fold up the team because nobody would pay it. When your hard working stud HB/ILB has to regularly miss practice to do odd jobs with his dad at the apartment complex they live in so they don't get evicted, and 20% of your team is living out of motels because they've been kicked out of their own homes, Pay-to-Play becomes a very ugly thing.
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Post by airraider on Jul 8, 2014 0:32:55 GMT -6
I have worked at a few schools where we were lucky to break even on friday nights after paying the officials.. with 30 people in the stands, its hard to generate funds.
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biggus3
Sophomore Member
Posts: 178
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Post by biggus3 on Jul 8, 2014 0:42:05 GMT -6
The issue I don't think you get is that by continuing to do it, you're basically endorsing it. You may not say anything at work, which is precisely the place you should say something about it. Otherwise you're just getting on a website to bitch about something that is entirely, 1000% within your control. No. I definitely get what you are saying Larrymoe. I know that I am a major cog in the machine that makes the activities dept able to appear that it is functioning. What do you think I should say or do in my situation? Lets say quitting was not an option. How would you push to change it? if I stopped fundraising so hard, I don't know that anything would change. you are right in that our coaching staff would shrink immediately, which is a major gripe of mine. I think the AD would just tell us to get in line with everyone else and wait for a handout. For a school our size in an area with that is well off, our activities dept budget is laughable as far as what sent from the district to the activities dept. I think the entire capital budget for the school is like 30k a year. We spend close to that just in helmets and shoulder pads. I like that our program is able to do some unique things because we are well funded via fundraising. I don't like that other programs are able to get free pass, hence my support for pay to play. There is an arms race culture that has developed in the surrounding community. we are sandwiched geographically between the top private school in the state, and the best public school as well. The former just a had the estate of a famous author who died leave the athletic dept several million dollars to upgrade their already top notch facilities. the latter just received a 21.8 million dollar influx of cash from the city to renovate the athletic complex adjacent to the school. The thing now has a goddam gourmet steak house in it. It is where that school plays its hockey games along with the school's indoor football practice facility. The perception to the community is that facility is part of their school. It isn't but when they use it all the time the incoming freshmen and their parents don't know any better. We also have pretty nice facilities, not elite, but if we don't appear to be keeping up with the Joneses, the talent that we do attract will instantly be gone to due to open enrollment. Its a war zone out here, I feel like I coach in the SEC. I am a good guy to have around if you need new headsets, unis, or blocking sleds, maybe a weight room but I can't get a new stadium overnight like some of the schools around us can.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2014 0:59:52 GMT -6
I have worked at a few schools where we were lucky to break even on friday nights after paying the officials.. with 30 people in the stands, its hard to generate funds. That was us last year. We lost money on our last two home games once we paid the refs. We only had 4 seniors and only 2 of them had family show up on Senior Night...
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Post by airraider on Jul 8, 2014 1:05:49 GMT -6
I have worked at a few schools where we were lucky to break even on friday nights after paying the officials.. with 30 people in the stands, its hard to generate funds. That was us last year. We lost money on our last two home games once we paid the refs. We only had 4 seniors and only 2 of them had family show up on Senior Night... It is a sad reality... we played a team one time that I ended up being HC at a couple of years later.. we played them on sat for their Homecoming.. and they were actually 5-0 at the time.. It was raining... but there were 25 people in the stands.. some of which were faculty members.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2014 1:11:57 GMT -6
That was us last year. We lost money on our last two home games once we paid the refs. We only had 4 seniors and only 2 of them had family show up on Senior Night... It is a sad reality... we played a team one time that I ended up being HC at a couple of years later.. we played them on sat for their Homecoming.. and they were actually 5-0 at the time.. It was raining... but there were 25 people in the stands.. some of which were faculty members. That's what our games looked like. It was about 20 degrees those nights and we were 1-8 and then 1-9, respectively. I was up top and counted 34 people, including coaches' families and school faculty, at one point.
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Post by airraider on Jul 8, 2014 1:25:26 GMT -6
The bad part is there is so much money that goes into the upkeep of a program... equipment replenishment.. helmet reconditioning.. field maintenance.. officials.. all of that costs money, and the money has to come from somewhere.
At some point the funding from the district/school might be cut off.. then what?
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biggus3
Sophomore Member
Posts: 178
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Post by biggus3 on Jul 8, 2014 1:32:14 GMT -6
where do you guys coach that a 5-0 team has empty stands on homecoming? Ive been on some bad teams record wise, but we could still fill our stadium on homecoming! I feel for ya, tough environment to coach in.
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