Budget Cuts Putting the Squeeze on Athletics : High schools: The money crunch has resulted in a loss of jobs and lower-level programs and extra duty for coaches.

Huntington Beach High School football Coach George Pascoe spent one day fitting 135 players with helmets after his equipment man had been laid off because of budget cuts. Pascoe’s $1 million liability policy meant he was the only one qualified to do the job.

Cypress High Athletic Director Rob Walker must cut seven lower-level athletic programs after his district eliminates seven coaching stipends. Walker makes the cuts. He’s got booster club funds that could keep the programs alive, but the district says he can’t use them.

Ocean View baseball Coach Steve Barrett is told after the first day of school that he’s being moved to Huntington Beach High to teach five science classes. Barrett reschedules his sixth-period baseball class at Ocean View until after regular school hours and now teaches the class for free.

The squeeze is on at virtually every high school in Orange County, where athletic administrators, coaches and players have become victims of an economic vise.

Last spring, school board meetings were jammed with students, teachers and parents who feared the worse. Governor Pete Wilson called for $2 billion in state education cuts for the 1991-92 school year. Some of the concerned carried picket signs, others predicted a bleak future for many student-athletes in the county’s high schools.

One parent told the board of the Saddleback Valley Unified School District that her two sons would have little reason to attend school if a proposed cutback to eliminate the wrestling program at Laguna Hills High was approved.

Another parent said that by eliminating any sport, the board was putting children at a competitive disadvantage now, in college, and perhaps, for the rest of their lives.

The district had considered cutting such programs as boys’ and girls’ cross-country, boys’ and girls’ tennis, water polo, golf and wrestling.

Don Stoll, water polo coach at El Toro High, predicted that 476 students at his school would be without a program if the sports were eliminated by the Saddleback Valley board.

“Multiply that by four schools, and you’re looking at about 1,600 kids wandering around the Saddleback Valley,” Stoll said.

Fortunately, the programs were spared in Saddleback Valley, but other areas in the county weren’t as fortunate. Hardest hit were the Anaheim and Huntington Beach union high school districts, where declining enrollments dictated a tightening of the athletic belt.

Each of the eight high schools--Anaheim, Cypress, Katella, Kennedy, Loara, Magnolia, Savanna and Western--in the Anaheim district were asked to trim $35,000. The district mandated that three sports--junior varsity football, sophomore basketball and freshman baseball--be eliminated.

The district further ruled that four coaching stipends, averaging about $1,500, be cut at each school. The loss of the stipends meant the elimination of four more programs. Administrators decided to cut frosh-soph girls’ volleyball, frosh-soph boys’ soccer and frosh-soph girls’ basketball. They are undecided which level of wrestling will be cut.

District administrators struck a bigger blow, however, when they ruled that schools could no longer pay coaching stipends with booster funds. Revenues were generally funded by profits from bingo games on campus, but since four district schools don’t offer bingo, the district ruled that those that did offer the game had an unfair advantage.

In the past, the district paid additional coaching stipends and then billed a school’s booster club. The lowest stipend was $1,125 and the highest was slightly more than $1,300. The total savings after eliminating the stipends at the eight high schools was about $85,000.

Last year, Walker’s booster clubs at Cypress High generated about $40,000. He estimated the group spent about $10,000 for extra coaches. This year, Cypress not only lost the seven stipends, it also lost five additional stipends that the booster club funded.

“It was money well spent,” Walker said. “The bottom line is, ‘Who gets hurt?’ It’s the kids. We’re whittling away at the lower-level programs and that’s the most important learning level.

“We had 70 kids out for the frosh-soph boys’ soccer team last year. How many of those kids would make a JV team now that we’ve eliminated a lower level? The programs are gone, and my experience tells me that you won’t see those programs reinstated in our lifetime.”

Administrators in the Anaheim district also eliminated some field and maintenance personnel who play a key role in repairing equipment, grooming fields and generally ensuring the safety of athletes.

“You have people who have been trained in other areas that are now being asked to fit and maintain safety gear,” Kennedy football Coach Mitch Olson said. “They’re learning on the job.

“I had a skilled equipment man who is now the field man somewhere else. He volunteers to help on game nights. We’ve lost trainers, equipment men and field men. No one is doing this (cutbacks) purposely. But something could happen that will wake everybody up.”

Coaches at the six schools in the Huntington Beach Union High School District--Edison, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Ocean View, Marina and Westminster--are also in a pinch.

“Game day is chaotic without an equipment man,” Edison football Coach Dave White said. “They take care of so many little things that coaches sometimes take for granted.”

One of the equipment man’s many jobs is collecting and cleaning player uniforms after a game. Pascoe said he no longer takes this task for granted after an incident last season.

“Our players have to take their uniforms home and wash them,” he said. “We had a player last year who melted his number all over his white jersey after he put the temperature on the dryer too high. A $70 jersey was completely ruined.”

This year, Pascoe has had to rely on the father of one of his players to maintain Huntington Beach’s playing gear.

“I’ve got a booster who’s a dispatcher for a fire department, so he’s around here a lot,” Pascoe said. “He’s been great, but when his son graduates, he’s gone and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

It wasn’t long ago that football programs in the Huntington Beach district received 50 new helmets every year. The cost of the helmets was funded by the district, according to former Fountain Valley Coach Mike Milner, now coaching at El Toro.

Today, booster clubs pay for the playing gear for every player in the district’s football programs, according to White. Booster groups also fund the coaching stipends for sophomore football and a transportation fee of $35 is charged for each participant.

“You figure it costs $500 to outfit each kid in your football program, and then multiply that by 150 kids,” White said. “Now you’ve got a pretty good idea of how much money our booster club is raising to outfit our players.

“I don’t know what we would do without bingo money. I think the day is coming when our high schools will be entirely funded by boosters.”

Pascoe thinks that day will come sooner rather than later.

“We’re a year away from complete funding by our booster clubs,” Pascoe said. “We’re facing another budget crunch next year. I can see it coming.”

And the consequences?

“Whenever you have boosters funding your program, there is a real fear that they might want to run it,” he said. “If you’re paying for your son to play, he’d better play.”

Budget Cuts Around the County

Anaheim Union High School District

--District administrators asked eight high schools to trim $35,000 each.

--Cut junior varsity football, sophomore basketball and freshman baseball.

--Eliminated seven coaching stipends at each school, which resulted in the loss of frosh-soph girls’ volleyball, frosh-soph girls’ basketball, frosh-soph boys’ soccer and one -lower level wrestling team.

Brea-Olinda Unified School District

--No sports cut.

--Eliminated assistant coaching stipends in all sports, except football and track and field. In all, 18 positions were cut.

--Imposed a $35 per-student, per-sport transportation fee.

Capistrano Unified School District

--No sports cut.

--Cut 10% of $90,000 from the state lottery funds normally divided among three high school athletic programs.

Fullerton Joint Union High School District

--No sports cut.

Garden Grove Unified School District

--No sports cut.

--However, the district combined some teams because of the low number of athletes at those levels. For instance, at La Quinta, the junior varsity girls’ soccer team was combined with the varsity squad. The lower-level coaches whose programs were eliminated were made assistants at the retained levels or assigned to other sports.

Huntington Beach Union High School District

--No sports cut.

--Trimmed $48,600, including coaching stipends for sophomore football, assistant sophomore football, co-ed badminton, frosh-soph baseball, and assistant boys’ and girls’ swimming at each school.

Irvine Unified School District

--No sports cut.

--The $160,000 in cuts will be the responsibility of the student body and booster groups at each school.

--Athletes are charged a $100 transportation fee.

Los Alamitos Unified School District

--No sports cut.

--Cut assistant coaching stipends, one each for football, swimming, cross-country and wrestling.

Newport-Mesa Unified School District

--No sports cut.

--Reduced transportation budget from $235,000 last year to $187,000 this year for four high schools.

Orange Unified School District

--No sports cut.

Placentia Unified School District

--No sports cut.

--Four assistant coaching stipends at each school were cut.

--Imposed a transportation fee, which ranges from $30 to $90, depending on the team’s amount of travel.

Saddleback Valley Unified School District

--No sports cut.

--Cut $40,000 from its athletic budget and eliminated stipends for 28 assistant coaching positions.

--Raised its transportation fees to $65, $90 and $115, depending on the team’s amount of travel. Last year, the school charged $60 and $80.

Santa Ana Unified School District

--No sports cut.

--Athletic budgets at all schools were cut 50%, totaling $400,000.

--All schools were forced to eliminate one football coach and to combine coaching duties in some sports, such as swimming, cross-country and track and field, where one coach now handles both the boys’ and girls’ teams.

Tustin Unified School District

--No sports cut.