bucketboy wrote:I feel the pay to play will open the pandora's box in many areas such as:
We paid to play why is our son/daughter not playing?
The stud player's family can't afford it because of a job loss etc... well can anyone see that lawsuit coming?
Both of these arguments are true whether it's $150, $300 or $900 so I don't see any real change based on the amount changing. We pay $150 now and if I though my kid would not play I wouldn't pay that either, however I go into every season knowing that paying isn't a guarantee of playing time.
OK nobody wants to pay and the school is not going to field a team. Does that mean that they can go play at another high school that does have one? IPS just did away with some football programs at certain high schools and it was proposed that they be allowed to go play at another high school. Wonder what the IHSAA will have to say about that?
Our schools do allow kids to play for another school if the sport isn't offered at theirs. It isn't that big of a deal.
Finally what happens if a kid happens to be a 2 or 3 sport athlete. For that family I am thinking a private school may be even more of a viable option than ever before................
To me the real issue is that if the cost per team is 15K (and I don't dispute your math, I think it's right on) and many schools have 2-4 teams, in a tight economy how has it taken this long for someone to say we need to make value decisions about whether we need to sponsor 3 softball teams or one more math teacher. I think that kids get something out of HS sports, but I think the costs (starting with coaches salaries and transportation costs) are pretty far out of line with what is returned in most cases. If your local rec program said they were running a summer softball program and that the biology teacher (with no experience) from the HS was willing to run the team with his buddy if you could raise 7K to pay them to do so, no one would choose to do it. As long as someone else foots the bill the above scenario sounds feasible. There are some great, experienced and dedicated HS coaches out there, but there are also some miserable ones. IF there was a $1000 price tag on playing ball, you might find that it's a requirement that the HS provide a quality coach and a quality experience or no one will choose to participate.
IMO The EASIEST thing to do to reign in costs is to simply make transportation the reponsibility of the athlete. That cuts 30% of the non-value added cost out right away. Yes the team might have a few athletes that can't get transportation, but that's what car pools are for. It's such a waste when many of the families are driving to the games anyway shadowing the team bus (usually severely under capacity).
