Parents Pay the Price for Child’s Play : Money: Many have to dig deep to keep their youngsters competitive in high school athletics.

Money and sports.

The words seem inseparable these days, for a number of reasons. Whether a ballplayer is making noise because he wants a big contract, or two fighters slug it out for some outrageous amount, or a captain of industry bids more for a franchise than the gross national product of many underdeveloped nations . . . money and sports seem stuck on the same wavelength.

That connection also exists at the high school level, where athletic programs have been blindsided by budget cuts, and parents are finding that having their kids suit up for one or more teams can be a costly proposition.

From shoes and other personal equipment to medical insurance, transportation fees, meal money and outside instruction, the tab is sometimes overwhelming.

“It’s been kind of a burden,” Anna Kristich said. “My son is playing basketball this year. I had to give him $104 for his shoes. I think that’s expensive. He just came home one day and said he needed the shoes. What are you going to do?”

Kristich and her husband, Marko, have been dipping into their pockets for years to support their children’s athletic endeavors. Their daughters Maria, Ana and Zrinka play volleyball, and their son, Andriga, is a sophomore on the La Habra High School varsity basketball team. Maria is now playing at Cal State Fullerton and Ana at Cal State Northridge, both on athletic scholarships. Zrinka, a 6-foot-5 center who is headed for UCLA next year on a basketball scholarship, is still at La Habra.

“Luckily, this year I guess they had some kind of fund-raiser or something, because Zrinka didn’t ask me for any money (for volleyball),” said Kristich, who works for Kraft Foods in Buena Park. Her husband manages the meat department at a Norwalk supermarket. “All I did was buy her shoes, which were like $65. . . . At one time, all three girls were on the volleyball team, and we had to pay for their uniforms and shoes. Each set (of uniforms) was around $30, and they each had two sets, one for home games and one for the road. Anything you buy for volleyball is very expensive because everything is name brands.”

Wendell and Karen Wells know the feeling. They are teachers at Westminster High, and their two youngest sons, Jared and Darren, play football for the school--Jared on the varsity team, Darren on the freshman squad. Their main expenses during the football season include $40 in transportation fees for each boy, one set of $30 gloves for Jared and two pairs of cleats at about $50 each. Karen Wells said it’s money that’s hard to part with.

“We have six children, and whenever you have to put out extra money for sports, it’s tough,” she said. “Jared will definitely play volleyball, so that’s about $30 for the uniform and $40 to $50 for the shoes. My oldest son, Jason, played soccer, baseball and football his four years in high schools. We don’t know yet what other sports Darren is going to play . . . It’s been expensive, but we’ve never gone without.”

But some families have not been able to handle the expenses, forcing kids to juggle schedules between classes, athletics and jobs. For one football player at San Clemente High, economic hardships reached such dimensions this year that he had to quit the team.

“His parents are divorced and his father lost his job,” San Clemente Coach Dave Elecciri said. “He lives with his dad, so he had to help support that situation. That was his No. 1 reason for quitting. If he had to play, work and go to school, he would not be able to keep his grades up. It was his family, school and football--in that order. One of them had to go.”

Other county coaches have seen cases nearly as dramatic. And some agree there might even be kids who don’t try out for interscholastic sports teams because they can’t afford the personal expenses and don’t realize that schools--either through their booster clubs or the coaches personally--generally are able to offer assistance.

“We’ve had it happen a couple of times where the parents have lost their jobs, and we’ve found the kids jobs on the weekends or even in the evenings,” said Raul Victores, Anaheim High football coach. “If they have to work, we excuse them from practice early. . . . You just have to deal with it. Sometimes we have to come up with the money on our own. You hate to deny a kid a chance to play a sport because he can’t afford shoes or something like that.”

Costa Mesa football Coach Tom Baldwin said, “The big thing I worry about are the ones who don’t come out, who never say anything. The ones I know about, we get solved. If a family doesn’t have insurance, we have to find people who help me out buying it. I’ll get doctors who’ll do physicals for nothing if the kid can’t afford it.”

Parents who financially support their kids’ participation in sports say the positives far outweigh the negatives, even if the bills are large. And they say there are ways to curtail expenses.

“There’s intrinsic cost to all the sports,” said Cliff White, a Garden Grove automobile wholesaler whose three daughters are or have been involved in sports at Garden Grove High. “The girls enjoy it, and it keeps them out of other things I wouldn’t want them involved in.”

Two of his daughters, Kelly and Stephanie, play softball for the Argonauts. Kelly also plays volleyball, and Stephanie plays soccer. Cari, now on the Golden West College softball team, was a third baseman/outfielder at Garden Grove. They could conceivably run up the cash register at any sporting goods store, but Cliff White said discretion is essential in multiple-athlete families.

“You can go out and spend $200 on a (baseball/softball) glove, but that’s not necessary,” White said. “You can get a good glove for $75. Most of the girls will have their own bats, but mine share one. At $100 for a bat, that could have gotten overly expensive.”

Brenda Sapp, softball coach and girls’ athletic director at Buena Park, sees girls in her program who have difficulty rounding up even the basic items.

“Our biggest problem is the girls, mostly at the JV level, not being able to afford the cleats,” Sapp said. “I’ve given up some of my personal equipment for the kids to use.”

The high cost of athletic shoes seems to be a predominant issue.

“We’re constantly trying to raise money for shoes,” said John Liebengood, Estancia football coach. “We’re always in a hole. And I’m always sinking into my coaching stipend to help pay. I’ve had to find a lot of ways to help pitch in, even borrowing money from my father-in-law.”

The cost of shoes would be nothing, however, when compared to getting hit with a big medical bill after an injury on the field. That’s why parents must pay anywhere between $50 and $150 for medical insurance each season for football-playing kids (less for other sports) or present proof of other valid coverage.

Rosalind Gulley, mother of Pacifica running back Dereck Nicholson, can attest to the value of having such coverage.

Nicholson’s season ended when he suffered two hairline fractures in his right leg in a game against Rancho Alamitos this month. Because his mother, a financial analyst at an Irvine firm, has insurance through her job, the amount out of her pocket for the emergency room bill that night was $20, and the follow-up visits to the doctor are $5 each.

Gulley, who raised Dereck, Jeremy (also a running back at Pacifica) and daughter Katine as a single parent until her sons entered high school and she remarried, said she basically spent money this year on football shoes and special face masks (about $25 each) for the boys. But she says there are many other associated expenses leading up to high school that parents with aspiring athletes must face along the way.

“It was a hardship when they (her sons) were playing Junior All-American football,” Gulley said. “The registration for that was something like $55 or $60 each, and you have to pay for the jerseys (about $25). I had to pay $10 or $15 a week until it was paid off.”

The Nicholson brothers also were involved in youth baseball leagues, but they never received lessons from private instructors as do many other kids. And those are not inexpensive, either. At the Ron LeFebvre Schools of Baseball & Softball, the rate for weekly pitching, hitting and catching lessons are $24 per half-hour.

Though optional, they are necessary evils, according to many parents. Honing skills at private schools can lead to starting spots on high school teams, which could turn into stardom and, eventually, into college scholarships. Anna Kristich has three examples in her family.

“Ana was on a volleyball club that cost $140 on monthly dues,” Kristich said. “Zrinka was playing for four years in a women’s basketball club that went to national tournaments. That cost us about $2,000.”

And how do parents put the extra cash together for such ventures? Any way they can.

“I save pennies, recycle cans and sell candy. Every little thing helps,” Kristich said. “You know how people save pennies in those big water bottles? For about eight years, I put pennies in one of those. It took us days and weeks to count that money. We couldn’t even move the bottle. We had to tip it over. I had $179 in there.”

Enough for a pair of basketball shoes and some extra shoelaces.

It’s Not the Sandlot

Minimum yearly athletic expense for Wendell and Karen Wells, parents of six children with two--Jared and Darren--playing high school sports.

Transportation fees: $120 ($40 per player per sport)

Football shoes: $100 ($50 per player)

Jared’s football gloves: $30

Football pre-game meals: $40 ($2 per player per week; balanced picked up by booster club)

Jared’s volleyball uniform: $30

Jared’s volleyball shoes: $40

Total: $360

Source: Karen Wells