Sports Become Fair Game in School Cuts

IRVINE — It looked uncannily like a pep rally. Cheerleaders waved placards. Football players strutted in their letter jackets. A high-tech sound system blared out colorful speeches.

But the mood at last’s week rally was defiant, not exuberant. Hundreds of parents and students had assembled in front of the Irvine Unified School District headquarters not to urge their teams to victory, but rather to voice their opposition to a proposed 25% cut in high school athletics.

“The students need a break from the constant pressures to perform well in the classroom,” said parent Phil Olsen, whose 17-year daughter plays tennis at University High School and whose 14-year-old daughter hopes to play soccer and volleyball. “Athletics is so important. We’re not only talking about athletes who will be hurt. We’re also talking about the marching bands, the cheerleaders, the pep squads and all those people in the stands.”

Those sentiments are echoed from one end of the county to the other, but in this year of state and local budget cuts, school district officials are eyeing some unpopular options to make ends meet. Next year, Fullerton students might have to get by with fewer tennis balls and football helmets; Irvine athletes might not get buses to travel to events, golfers and gymnasts in Santa Ana might lose their programs altogether.

Sports programs have rarely faced such crises. Long the most visible of all extracurricular activities, they have generally enjoyed immunity from the budget woes that periodically afflict other areas such as music, school counselors or shop--programs that do not enjoy such vocal boosters as sports.

But Gov. Pete Wilson, struggling to balance a state budget that is more than $14 billion in the red, has directed school districts to cut $2 billion from their spending next school year, touching off a cutting frenzy that has bitten deeply into some local budgets. That’s left athletic programs vulnerable and made parents and students angry.

“What’s happening now is that school districts have no other place to cut so they are coming to sports,” said Bonnie Stormont, athletic director at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, which might have to trim $48,600 from its sports programs. “But once you mention athletics, you are finally going to get the attention of parents.”

Cutting sports alarms parents because it directly and noticeably affects their children, Stormont said.

“When you add an extra student to an English class, parents are not likely to notice,” she said. “But if you cut out a swimming program, you are going to get people up in arms.”

The days when sport programs were spared from school cuts are long gone, agreed Stan Thomas, commissioner of athletics for the California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section.

“Everyone is going to have to share the burden,” Thomas said. “The sacred-cow image is now a myth. Money is the reality and school districts are making cuts where it is prudent. “

Earlier cuts in areas such as elementary music instruction and counseling have also left districts with little left to trim. So now, for some, the target is athletics.

But where the cuts in music or counseling were for the most part made quietly, the new attention to athletic programs has prompted rallies and packed board rooms in places like Irvine and the Saddleback Valley Unified School District.

Saddleback trimmed $150,000 from its athletic program as part of its overall $4.8-million reduction. Irvine school trustees are contemplating whether to slash $160,000 from athletics at that district’s three high schools.

Parents like Steve Shedd, who has two children at University High in Irvine, doesn’t believe any cuts should be made in sports. Shedd is a member of a task force, formed by the Irvine school board last year, to address the problem of cuts in athletic programs.

The task force urged district officials to hold the line.

“Our conclusion is that the school board needs to step forward and make a commitment toward not cutting athletics,” Shedd said. ‘In athletics, school districts get the greatest value for their money. It’s not to say that the music program and the arts are not as important. But sports provides the greatest good for the greatest number.”

That’s partly because sports receives more private support than do other extracurricular activities, which helps to get more mileage out of a limited budget, Shedd added.

“Parents are spending more private dollars in sports to keep it going,” he said. “Parents are being fund-raised to death.”

Olsen, a retired professional football player who played for the Los Angeles Rams and other teams, says he wants his 14-year-old daughter, Brooke, to be able to play whatever sports she wants without worrying that the program will be cut in the future. She attends a private school but will be a freshman at University in the fall.

Brooke, who diligently practices her soccer skills several hours a week, says sports have helped her learn how to concentrate and to keep her mind on school.

“I don’t know what I would do without sports,” she said. “It’s something I look forward to every day.”

With money in short supply, many officials are worried that the budget struggles will end up pitting athletics against other programs, or even thrusting some sports into competition with others as they battle for survival.

For the most part, however, district officials say that has not happened.

“I’m so impressed that no one has lapsed into cannibalism,” said Saddleback Valley school Trustee Bobbee Cline. “Music supporters are not saying, ‘Let’s cut sports.’ We don’t have sports supporters saying, ‘Let’s cut the academic programs.’ What we do have is a very frustrated but cohesive community that doesn’t like any idea of cutting.”

Even some of the most enthusiastic sports boosters agree, but they stress the special value of athletics in an academic curriculum and argue that some officials are moving too quickly to drop sports.

Mission Viejo parent Diana Poulos, for instance, believes that district programs deserve equal treatment when it comes to making cuts.

But Poulos--whose son attends Trabuco Hills High School and is a member of the golf and basketball teams--opposes plans to cut certain sports out of the curriculum, instead suggesting that boosters pick up their fund-raising activity to help offset expenses for uniforms, exercise equipment and other high-cost items.

“We need to find ways to keep programs in place,” Poulos said. “It would be better to keep some level of sports rather than just cutting them out entirely.

There may be a limit, however, on how much booster groups can do to keep certain programs alive. Coaches have been active in fund raising even before there were whispers that districts were preparing to cut their budgets, and they wonder how much more money they can raise.

At Mission Viejo High School, basketball coach Bob Minier says teams have resorted to purchasing uniforms on a rotating basis.

“This can be quite demoralizing,” Minier said. “We know there have to be cuts. But there seem to be more and more roadblocks in the way of success.”

As the outgoing president of the Brea-Olinda High School football booster club and the father of two student athletes, Alex Gasporra has organized steak dinner sales, set up snack bars and helped sponsor weighlifting-thons to raise $7,500 for the Wildcats.

But even that hasn’t proved enough to save the school’s sports programs from having to endure cuts.

The Brea-Olinda Unified School District made athletic cuts in late January, eliminating 13 assistant coaches, about 25% of the school’s assistant coaching staff. The district also dismantled its interscholastic competition between Brea-Olinda Junior High School and schools in the Fullerton Joint Union School District.

A principal of an elementary school in Whittier, Gasporra knows how drastic budget cuts are for schools. But he says athletics play a special role in education, and he warns that cutting them could have far-reaching consequences.

“I was raised in Watts, and now I’m a principal in Whittier,” Gasporra said. “If it wasn’t for football in school, I don’t know what I would be doing now. Sports motivated me. And I’m sure it is the activity that keeps many kids in school.”

High School Sports: What’s Being Cut

As Orange County school districts grapple with state budget cuts, many have had to make reductions in their athletic programs. County districts, their affected high schools, and the status of their sports programs are listed below:

Anaheim Union

High schools: Anaheim, Cypress, Katella, Kennedy, Loara, Magnolia, Savanna, Western. No discussion of cuts.

Brea-Olinda Unified

High school: Brea-Olinda. Thirteen assistant coaches, approximately 25% of the school’s coaching assistant coach staff, eliminated. The district also cut interscholastic competition between Brea-Olinda Junior High School and schools in the Fullerton Joint Union School District.

Capistrano Unified

High schools: Capistrano Valley, Dana Hills, San Clemente. Proposed 10% cutbacks across the board in every department of the secondary schools.

Fullerton Joint Union

High schools: Buena Park, Fullerton, La Habra, Sonora, Sunny Hills, Troy. The district has recommended that each high school cut equipment expenditures 15%. Could include equipment such as basketballs, tennis balls, football helmets and pads.

Garden Grove Unified

High schools: Garden Grove, La Quinta, Los Amigos, Pacifica, Rancho Alamitos Santiago. No cuts anticipated. Board meets June 18 to review a tentative budget.

Huntington Beach Union

High schools: Edison, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Marina, Ocean View, Westminster. Board approved $48,600 in athletic budget cuts. Athletic directors deciding where those cuts should be made.

Irvine Unified

High schools: Irvine, University, Woodbridge. In effort to trim $160,000 from its athletic budget, board is considering eliminating busing for athletics. Some smaller sports such as golf and tennis could be eliminated, and freshman and sophomore teams could be combined.

Laguna Beach Unified

High school: Laguna Beach. No cuts at this time.

Los Alamitos Unified

High school: Los Alamitos. No cuts planned.

Newport-Mesa Unified

High schools: Corona del Mar, Costa Mesa, Estancia, Newport Harbor. No cuts planned.

Orange Unified

High schools: Canyon, El Modena, Orange, Villa Park. Cuts not expected this year because the district slashed its budget last year.

Placentia Unified

High schools: El Dorado, Esperanza, Valencia. Tuesday, the board will discuss cutting the athletic budget by 25%. Boys’ volleyball and basketball coaches have received reduction-in-staff notices. One athletic director has been reassigned.

Saddleback Valley Unified

High schools: El Toro, Mission Viejo, Laguna Hills and Trabuco Hills. The board has approved $150,000 in athletic cuts but decided not to eliminate any one sport. Board is considering ways to apportion the cuts.

Santa Ana Unified

High schools: Century, Santa Ana, Santa Ana Valley, Saddleback. Board has approved $400,000 in junior and senior high school athletic budget cuts as part of $13.2 million in district-wide reductions. Included are: loss of eight assistant coaches (two per school); elimination of golf, gymnastics, field hockey (except at Santa Ana High) and intramural sports; 50% reduction in money for sports equipment. Also, coaching positions will be combined in cross-country, track and field and swimming so that one coach will coach both the boys and the girls.

Tustin Unified

High schools: Tustin, Foothill. Board will meet June 24 to consider budget cut recommendations. Approximately $500,000 needs to be trimmed from next year’s budget.

Source: Individual school districts.

Compiled by: Los Angeles Times Prep Sports Staff