Sports Funding Proves to be Hot Button Issue

by Jacob Bogage ’12

27 sports, 1 team. That used to be the mantra of University of Maryland (UMD) athletics. But after Athletic Director Kevin Anderson cut two sports in the last two years and University President Wallace Loh pledged to cut eight more on November 21 to counter a $4.7 million budget deficit, the “1 team” attitude is not looking too good.

Though Sherwood has not run into athletic financial woes (in fact the athletic department was $57,000 in the black after last fiscal year), the cost of athletics at the Sandy Spring school has long been a hot topic.

A winner of five team state championships and dozens of individual titles in the last four years, Sherwood spent more than $218,000 on athletics last year alone, around 30 percent of the school’s $739,000 Independent Activity budget.

To ease the cost on the athletic department, it also receives approximately $40,000 in funds from the Warrior Club, Sherwood’s athletic booster club, as well as another $38,000 from MCPS.

Where this money should go, however, is a constant subject of debate. Last year $35,000 of it went to the football program, the largest single expenditure listed in the athletics budget. The next highest was field preparation costing just over $34,000, much of it going to repair the grass on Caruso Memorial Field, including $17,000, almost half of the Warrior Club’s $40,000 donation.

Though the athletics budget is seemingly large, the numbers at Sherwood correspond with other schools’ around the county and between costly field repairs and equipment, uniform and other costs, the Sherwood athletic department cannot buy everything on its wish list. That’s where the Warrior club steps in.

Club president Tony Ryan offers the softball team’s new batting cages as an example of the club’s fundraising process. Coaches approached Athletic Director Kathy Green with a $1,700 proposal for the facilities that was not budgeted for, so the offer was kicked to the Warrior Club which passed the proposal in October.

“$1,700 is not a small number, but it fits. It fits in our $40,000 budget,” Ryan said. “That’s a pretty average number for us.”

As Caruso Memorial Field undergoes renovations over the summer, the club is also contemplating funding renovations of its own. “What we’ll do in the spring is take a look at what that plan is and what it will address, and then we may do a little brainstorming to see what kind of things we could do at the same time, cost-effectively,” he added.

The Warrior Club acts as the department’s top fundraising partner since high school sports cannot sustain Sherwood’s budget the way ticket sales and TV revenue do for UMD. Poor game attendance and a lack of booster support eventually did in the Terps’ athletic finances, something avoidable at Sherwood with the Warrior Club’s aid.

Fee or Free

by Cal Wilson ’14

During the 2008-09 school year, MCPS responded to parents’ fervent criticism and the threat of lawsuits by clarifying its rules for student fees. As a result of the uproar, MCPS more forcibly mandated that students could not be charged for books or materials related to the instructional day because it would be in violation of Maryland’s system of free public schools. However, MCPS determined that extracurricular activities, including sports, are outside of the academic school days and thus are not guaranteed as “free.”

All middle and high school students who voluntarily participate in sports or clubs must pay the Extra Curricular Activity fee (ECA fee) of $30. Students may be eligible to pay a reduced fee of $15 if their families’ income is less than $35,000. However, as any high school athlete can attest, sports equipment adds up to more than $30 and athletes regularly must purchase equipment necessary for their sport out-of-pocket.

For instance, a student on the cross country team will need to purchase a pair of training shoes (known as flats), a pair of running shoes, a technical t-shirt, sweat/warm up suit (if the student does not already own such clothing) and a uniform. The cost of flats range anywhere from $65 to $100, running shoes cost about $25, a technical t-shirt and sweat/warm up suit cost $50 together, and a boy’s uniform costs $37 while a girl’s costs $57. That is a total of $177 to $232, respectively, that a student, or the student’s parents, must pay out of pocket to participate in cross country.

If a student cannot purchase the necessary equipment for any reason, many coaches have “hand-me-down” articles of clothing and equipment that a student may borrow for the season.

“Some of the recently graduated athletes have contributed their equipment back to the program … We try to pass that equipment on to those who need it. Sometimes parents have helped purchase spikes for student-athletes who needed them,” said cross country coach Dan Reeks. “We also have parts of unclaimed warm ups and sweats, as well as good, unclaimed t-shirts athletes have left behind after meets or practices we let the team members use.”