Athletes from Jamesville-DeWitt won’t be taking any big trips in 2009 — unless someone else is footing the bill
Take, for example, the J-D boys’ basketball team’s trip to New York City in late January. The team played Lincoln High School in Manhattan. Lincoln picked up the travel tab.
“If people are going to invite us all expenses paid, we’re not going to turn those great opportunities down,” said William Brown, athletic director for Jamesville-DeWitt. “But if it’s something we have to pay for, we’re not going as far away anymore.”
In anticipation of cuts in the 2009-2010 New York state budget, Brown and other athletic directors across Onondaga County are beginning to find ways to save money.
The proposed state budget calls for a 3-percent — or $698-million — cut in funding for schools statewide. The reduction means less money for high school athletic departments.
Tom Tatham, athletic director for Cicero North Syracuse High School, and his colleagues across Onondaga County began to introduce the new money saving plans at the beginning of the 2009 athletic calendar in January.
“We’re looking at all different sorts of measures,” Tatham said. One of which is limiting the team’s travel to within its conference, he said. By playing only teams in their immediate areas, schools will save money on fuel costs and paying travel personnel.
In another money-saving measure, Tatham said, a standardized number of games will be cut from each team’s season. Softball, for example, will go from 24 games to 20 this season. This allows schools to forego the cost of paying scoreboard operators, officials, ticket takers and other staffers for fewer games.
J-D and C-NS high schools may have a better time dodging the sting of budget cuts than many of Syracuse’s city schools, athletic directors say, because the two are among Onondaga County’s wealthiest school districts.
But for city schools, the state budget cuts are more of threat. Schools like Fowler High School, Henninger High School, Nottingham High School and Corcoran High School rely more heavily on state-granted money to fund their education and athletic programs.
But Susan Warner, the athletic supervisor for Corcoran, expresses uncertainty about how the state cutbacks will affect the school’s athletic program.s.
“We’re not really sure what will happen,” Warner said. “Rumor and conjecture say we’ll probably be hit hard. But we’re hopeful we won’t have to experience any cutbacks in the levels we offer, like freshman and JV. We’re hoping to keep those intact and refine them as a city.”
The effect on student-athletes of less travel and fewer games is unclear, said Warner. The cost-cutting measures, she said, could be a help or a detriment.
“It could go either way,” Warner said. “For us, it might help us.” In poorer school districts like Corcoran, she said, many of the students work and having fewer games allows students more time to earn money.
But she sees the other side as well. “Well-off” districts, Warner said, may have to sacrifice more road games and team vacations. That’s a practice where teams travel long distances to play in tournaments or a series of matchups.
“It depends on what your program’s about,” Warner said. “It’s kind of a dual-edged sword.”
(Conor Orr is a junior majoring in broadcast journalism and political science.)
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