Written by By chris gabel • cgabel@rgj.com • September 27, 2009
When golfer Diana Walker steps up to the tee box Wednesday afternoon, ready to play 18 holes for her school, it’s exactly where she thought she would be on the final day of September — almost.
Facing a bleak outlook in the local construction industry and the possibility of being laid off, Walker’s father, Todd, left his job in Reno last year and moved his family to Dublin, 30 minutes southeast of Oakland, when he found work there.
“We wanted to stay,” Todd Walker said. “I gave it a year and everyone in my industry could tell it was coming. I didn’t want to get laid off. I took the proactive approach.”
Instead of being the Panthers’ top golfer this season, Diana Walker is No. 2 at Dublin. But Walker’s ranking on the team isn’t important; what she left behind is.
“It’s been really hard,” she said. “I liked my golf coach at North Valleys a lot and miss my teammates a lot.”
Losing Walker, a second-team High Desert League selection last season — as well as her sisters, Kathy, a sophomore who was on the golf team last year, and, Peggy, a multi-sport eighth-grader — was significant.
“Diana and Kathy moving kind of gutted my team,” Panthers girls golf coach Dennis Oliver said. “We’re a little more affected by economics.”
North Valleys softball coach Jimmy Gleich had hoped to coax Diana Walker to play for his team in the spring. But Gleich has his own issues.
After being laid off from his job at a local uniform company in June, Gleich continues to look for work, leaving his availability to coach in the spring somewhat up in the air.
“It’s not easy finding a job of any kind right now,” said Gleich, who’s been coaching for three years. “I worry about whether the next thing I get will allow me to continue to coach. The biggest concern is whether I can coach in the spring. I like the kids, the parents, the administration. I don’t want to leave.
“We’re about to start our offseason program here in a couple weeks and the last thing I want to do is commit to these girls and then have to leave.”
At Reed, football coach Ernie Howren said there were a few players expected to come out for the team who did not because they had to get part-time jobs.
The North Valleys and Damonte Ranch areas have been hit hard by foreclosures; administrators at both schools say they have lost athletes to transfers.
The Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association during the summer reduced the maximum number of games teams can play by roughly 10 percent in most sports in an effort to save on travel expenditures.
“We’re feeling it, no doubt about it,” Carson football coach Blair Roman said, “just like everyone is feeling it.”
It’s happening everywhere
The plight of those directly affected in Northern Nevada, while painful, is not theirs alone.
Maine has reduced the number of playoff-qualifiers in each team sport, while the Higley school district in Arizona slashed its athletic budget 60 percent this year.
The Saddleback Valley Unified School District in Southern California cut assistant coaches positions at its schools.
The Dixon Unified School District, 20 miles southwest of Sacramento, in February decided to discontinue all sports at the town’s middle and high schools for the 2009-10 school year. That decision was later overturned, though programs are receiving only about 39 percent of the district funding they did a year ago.
“(This) is going to be the worst year financially for school districts in history,” said Eddie Bonine, Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association executive director, “and 2010-11 is going to be worse.”
In Michigan, where the woes of the car industry have impacted nearly everything, high school athletics are in a similar situation.
“There’s no money, period,” Jamie Gent, athletics director at Haslett High near Lansing, said. “We’re coming to a stage in the next three years that if things don’t get better, (it could damage) sports altogether”
Better budget management
Cutting funding for sports programs at the region’s public schools was discussed during the recent legislative session, Washoe County School District director of student services Ken Cass said. The funding survived, but “we’re certainly tightening the belt,” Cass added.
Expenses such as coaches’ stipends, athletic facility upkeep and travel come from the district’s general fund.
Cass said he expects to save $55,000 this year by implementing limits on the number of students who take overnight trips for both athletics and activities, as well as increasing the number of students in a hotel room on such trips from two to four.
Funds that do not come from the school district — for new equipment and out-of-state travel — come from either game receipts or, primarily, fundraising.
“I explain to my parents at the first meeting every year that I wish fundraising wasn’t needed,” Galena football coach Steve Struzyk said. “But it is. It’s a necessary evil. Without it, we wouldn’t have the things that we have. Without it, we wouldn’t have helmets and shoulder pads.”
But the economy has certainly handed out a few hits to fundraising efforts.
Roman said his team’s fundraising was down 20 percent from last year, while North Valleys coach Ty Gregg put his program’s take down between 10 and 15 percent despite taking additional measures to bring in revenue.
“You just have to budget a lot more,” Roman said. “You’re always going to have things that come up, but you budget and you stick to it. To be honest, you prioritize more and there are some things you do without.”
Nearly every coach admitted to seeing some sort of drop off in fundraising, though it has not been as hard hit as some feared.
“We’ve had to beat the bushes a little harder for the same resources we’ve gotten in the past,” said Reno High coach Dan Avansino, who scaled back spending while amping up fundraising efforts. “But to be honest, it hasn’t been as noticeable as one might think when you see the number of businesses going out of business, the empty storefronts, not only in our region but the entire country. From our standpoint, fundraising has been harder and it is down, but it hasn’t been as bad as one might think.”
A good chunk of the fundraising dollars go to cover the pay-to-play costs some athletes’ families cannot afford.
Athletics gone at Independence
While other states have cut sports programs, it is a last resort for Nevada’s school districts and the NIAA.
Reducing the number of games was a step toward avoiding cuts, as will realignment proposals to be discussed in the coming months. The end goal is to save money on transportations costs, which North Valleys athletic administrator Dr. Craig Hill said is the “single greatest cost in athletics.”
But even the modifications already made and those in the works could not save athletics at Independence High in Elko.
The school for “delinquent and needy youths,” operated by the Nevada Youth Training Center under the umbrella of the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services, canceled all of its sports when funding was stripped during the recent legislative session.
“There is just no funding for athletic programs,” said Chrystal Main, system advocate for the DCFS in Carson City. “Those programs were run with overtime hours, and there is absolutely no overtime for this agency anymore. That’s just the way it is with the economy.
“Our priorities are safety and education. With the latest budget cuts and mandated furloughs, athletics had to go.”
Main said she did not know if athletics at Independence, which competed in the Northern 2A league, would return in better times. The DCFS is operating in the first year of a two-year budget, so the earliest return would be 2011-12.
“It’s clearly disappointing for the kids,” Main said. “What kid doesn’t want extra-curricular activities? We’ll see again in two years.”
Gone for good
The recession will not last forever. But those affected won’t get the time back.
If new-home construction picks up again, how long will it take Damonte Ranch to recoup the students it has already lost?
If districts must cut athletic funding, will schools and programs ever get it back?
And what about the displaced student-athletes?
“It’s hard because it’s my senior year and I had to leave,” Diana Walker said. “I don’t get to graduate with the people I went to school with for the last three years.”
