Claremont High Tries Pay-for-Play Policy : Preps: Students being asked to contribute $175 per sport, plus $50 transportation fee.

Jay Webb says the $675 it will cost to play three sports at Claremont High this year is too much. So, he has decided to drop basketball and concentrate on football and baseball.

Webb, a sophomore, will pay the necessary $450 to play them from his savings and by asking his parents for help.

“With that much money due, something had to give,” Webb said. “I even contemplated giving up another sport.”

Webb, 15, is not the only one at Claremont facing tough decisions concerning athletics. The Inland Empire school, 40 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, is asking students to fund their own teams after the school board eliminated the sports budget earlier this summer.

Athletes will be asked to make a $175 contribution for every team they go out for. A mandatory $50 transportation fee, started last year, will be added.

Although the $175 is voluntary, officials warn that a sport will be dropped if it does not raise 80% of its operating costs.

“Kids are proud, so it will be hard for them to admit they cannot afford the $175,” said Cathie Simonson, a member of the school’s athletic council. “There is definitely pressure there for them to come up with the money. If a kid does not pay his fair share, it could create problems.”

Claremont, which has an enrollment of 1,800 in four grades, is the first high school in the Southland to implement a voluntary pay-for-play policy. The Santa Barbara High district tried a mandatory $35-a-sport program at three schools in 1980, but it ended after an adverse court ruling.

Claremont administrators said continued budget cuts in the state’s education system left them few options.

Paul Held, president of the Claremont Unified District School Board, said officials had considered the policy the past two years. With nearly $3 million cut from the district’s $25-million budget since 1990, Held said, the opportunity to save up to $200,000 it costs to operate the high school’s athletic department was hard to pass up.

“We hope the community understands the budget constraints that have been imposed upon us,” said Held, a board member for the past nine years. “The board feels disappointed it has come to this, but we are comfortable with the decision we reached. We sought a lot of community feedback before we made this decision.”

Students must pay the $225 before they begin practice, and the money is refundable if they are cut or quit before the first game.

Administrators debated whether to pro-rate the voluntary fee based on the cost of a particular sport, but decided not to discriminate against any sport or gender.

“We didn’t want girls to get mad because they’re paying more than the boys, or the swimmer to be upset because he was paying more than the tennis player,” said Doug Keeler, district superintendent. “We felt charging certain kids more might create more problems.”

District officials decided on the voluntary fee in a last-ditch effort to save Claremont’s athletic program. But they are aware that problems might arise.

What do you tell an athlete who cannot pay all or any of the fee? How do you disband a team that does not reach 80% of its operating costs? How do you handle angry parents who demand their child get an opportunity to play, because he or she paid for the chance?

Bob Baiz, Claremont’s athletic director, said he worries the fee also might keep a potential athlete from trying out. But he vows not to deny anyone a chance to play.

Baiz is the head of the school’s recently formed athletic council, which consists of officers from various booster clubs. The council is organizing several fund-raisers to help offset the deficit. The district also has set aside $17,000 to aid those who have trouble coming up with the money.

“There’s nothing positive about charging kids to play sports, except that at least we’ll have a program,” said Baiz, the school’s former football coach. “The kids are getting a good lesson in civics, but they keep asking why the school could afford to fund athletics in the past and not now.”

Webb is one of those students. He and his parents understand the importance of extracurricular activities, but are not happy that it will cost them.

“We knew the district was talking about this fee, but nobody really believed it would happen,” Webb said. “I know many of my friends just flat-out can’t pay it.”

Webb’s mother, Patti, said she was shocked when she received a letter explaining the new fee from the school last month.

“I don’t think this is fair,” she said. “Claremont is a beautiful community, and this just shouldn’t happen. Other districts seem to have found a way to fund athletics, so why can’t this one? I really think the threat to drop athletics is just a scare tactic. It’s too important not to have.”

She said that she will be upset if her son pays $225 to play football and never gets in a game.

Simonson, president of the baseball booster club, echoed the sentiment. She said new baseball coach Cliff Harwick Jr. might be pressured to carry fewer players on the varsity if some of them are not expected to see much playing time.

“I think paying to play may result in the Little League mentality with parents,” said Simonson, whose son, Chris, is a junior on the baseball team. “Parents are going to have a lot of hard questions for coaches when they pay $225 and watch their son or daughter sit on the bench.”

Harwick said he is unfamiliar with all the facts concerning the school’s new athletic fee, but he said he will not be pressured into playing an athletes.

“As a coach you can never sacrifice your integrity and play someone based on money,” he said. “You go with your best nine and hope the team experience is enough for the rest.”

Rich Ede, cross-country and track coach, said he feels no pressure with the new fee because the kids who make the team are the ones who run the fastest times.

He said that more athletes than ever signed up for cross-country this fall. Early figures show there might be enough money in the team’s budget to buy sweat suits for the first time in 20 years.

“Financially, we appear to be better off than we ever have,” Ede said. “So far, very few kids have had trouble coming up with the money. And we’ll have no problem helping those than can only pay part of it.”

Keeler does not expect all sports to have such an easy time of it. How problems will be handled is still uncertain, because Claremont is the first local school to try pay-for-play. “We looked around for a program to model ours after,” he said, “but there weren’t any. I just hope this isn’t an indication of things to come.”