If parents in the Saddleback Valley Unified School District want assistant coaches for sports programs this fall, the families will need to pony up the cash themselves. The 34,000-student district has cut the positions from its high schools – along with all funding for roller hockey and lacrosse – as a cost-savings measure.

Conversely, athletic programs at the county's largest school district, Santa Ana Unified, will remain almost untouched. Parents won't be asked to subsidize the cost of bus transportation to away games, and won't need to raise funds to pay for basics like equipment and uniforms. The biggest fear right now is the possible loss of athletic secretaries this fall, but a final decision hasn't been made.

As high schools cope with drastic funding shortfalls, they've been forced to make tough budget decisions about athletics and other extracurricular programs, widening the disparity of sports offerings – and funding available – in Orange County's diverse communities.

"It's really a question of priorities that school districts have to make," said Chris Corliss, the Orange County Department of Education's program coordinator for health, sports and physical education services.

"High school sports are an integral part of the high school experience, but it's nothing that's mandated," Corliss said. "I would predict some significant belt-tightening in the next few years. Coaches will be lost. Parents will be asked for more in the very near future, whether through fundraising or direct contributions."

While districts like Santa Ana Unified have avoided deep cuts to sports programs so far – the district's high proportion of socioeconomically disadvantaged families wouldn't be able to help subsidize sports – many other local districts have been forced to scale back their athletic offerings.

In response, booster groups increasingly are being tapped to raise funds and, at times, beg and cajole parents into writing checks for hundreds of dollars per season, per athlete, per sport.
Mission Viejo parent Linda Robert, who helps head up fundraising efforts for Trabuco Hills High School's roller hockey team, says that with the loss of all Saddleback Valley Unified financial support, the team must now come up with about an additional $3,400 a year. That's on top of the $1,000 or more that parents individually pay to outfit their children with expensive gear and equipment, she said.

"We sell food, do garage sales, restaurant benefit nights, as many fundraisers as we can do," said Robert, who has an incoming freshman hockey player and an older hockey player who graduated this year. "We tell parents going in, 'This is how much we need to raise, and if we don't, you are going to have to make up the difference.'"

SHRINKING PROGRAMS

Across California, high schools are paring coaching staffs, wiping out or combining lower-level teams such as freshmen and frosh-soph, requiring parents to pay for bus transportation, and cutting down the number of away games each season, officials say. In the Garden Grove Unified School District, officials are planning to cut up to two games per season from some sports beginning this fall, said Frank Alvarado, a board member of the Orange County Athletic Directors Association.

Public schools can't force parents to pay for sports – the California Supreme Court made that clear in a 1984 ruling – but there's no law that says school districts must offer sports programs.
There's also nothing to stop parents and student athletes from seeking out donations and sponsorships wherever they can, although the sour economy is making it an increasingly difficult feat.

"Parents are being hammered with so many other things at school that sometimes they say, 'No, I don't want to raise the money,'" said Rossmoor parent Larry Strawther, who publishes a popular sports-focused e-mail newsletter on Los Alamitos High School athletics. "Merchants are being hit hard by so many different entities," he added. "The level of donations is going down and is harder to find, as the cost of sports is going up."

In the past few years, the size of the printed program for Los Alamitos High's boys basketball team – an annual publication that includes player rosters and game schedules – has been cut in half, Strawther said, primarily because local businesses have pulled out their ads. What was once 80 to 90 pages now is now 44 pages and shrinking.

FINANCIAL HARDSHIPS

The pressure on athletic booster groups also is increasing as parents lose their jobs and can no longer write a check to cover the cost of the sport, much less keep their own child fully outfitted in expensive gear.

When a student can't afford to participate, other parents inevitably step in and help pick up the tab, booster groups say. "We all know our school doesn't have the money, especially in today's economy," said Penny Sales, president of La Habra High School's football booster group. "We're a championship program, and if we want to stay a championship program, we just know we're going to have to do more fundraising." Some parents are keeping their children out of sports altogether because of the cost, officials say, or are forcing them to pick one sport per year or per season.

Rancho Santa Margarita parent Angie Hunt told her 14-year-old son, Adam, that he couldn't play both football and roller hockey at Trabuco Hills High this fall. "My son would have done both, but we didn't have the money, so he had to choose one or the other," said Hunt, whose son will be a freshman. "It's sad; the cost limits their choices."

At nearby Mission Viejo High School, where funding for all assistant coaches has been eliminated, school athletic director Troy Roelen said he expects to lose about 20 of his 95 coaches this fall. The remainder of his coaching staff will do double duty.

"I told my coaching staff we are thin and we need to make do," said Roelen, an English teacher at the school. "I've talked to parents and they agree to make it work. But at the current rate, if the cost of athletics keeps going up, we're going to start losing students."

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