The Empire State Games has lost its host site and now has nowhere to play.
The group organizing the venues for the games — the Hudson Valley Local Organizing Committee — has told New York state that it will not sponsor the games on the playing fields of several schools in the Hudson Valley. The move is in response to new fee imposed by the state on athletes to defray the cost of the games.
“We arrived at this regrettable decision based on an overwhelming feeling that the participation fee violates the spirit of the games,” the Hudson Valley Local Organizing Committee said in a letter to the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. The Hudson Valley organizing committee declined to comment beyond the letter, mailed to the state in January.
The decision has left the fate of the games up in the air. The future of the games is “under review,” said Dan Keefe, the state’s deputy public relations official for the games. He declined further comment.
The loss of the playing venues is another in a series of blows to the 31-year-old amateur games.
In early January, state budget cuts left the Empire State Games without funding for its 2009 games. Traditionally, the games have been funded almost entirely by the state, receiving $2.7 million of its $3 million budget from the state. To compensate for the lost state money, the Empire State Games’ state organizers decided to charge amateur athletes to compete for the first time. The fee has been set at $285.
To host the games, the Empire State Games depended on the Hudson Valley committee to provide athletic playing fields ranging from basketball courts to track and field venues for the thousands of athletes at the games.
The Hudson Valley organizing commmitted had originally intended to help house and organize thousands of athletes for the Empire State Games. The committee had planned to provide playing fields at Vassar College, Marist College, St. Mary’s College and other smaller schools in the Hudson Valley region.
“We did it about four years ago and they had asked us and the school started making temporary arrangements to do so again,” Kim Culigan, associate director of athletics for Vassar College, said. Planning for the games has now stopped at Vassar, said Culigan.
In the meantime, high school athletic directors and athletes are growing frustrated with the ever-changing status of the games.
Mike Stamboly, athletic director for Rome Free Academy High School, describes the State Game’s as important in the development of young athletes’ careers. In some instances, the games even provide a recruiting pipeline for high-level collegiate coaches to view athletes in person.
“I’ve seen it happen,” Stamboly, said. “I’ve seen a coach come down after seeing an athlete in the games and talk to me and say ‘Jeez, this kid looks nothing like he did on film. I’m glad I came down to see him.’”
For some, the games are an outlet and a good place to keep high school athletes motivated and focused, Stamboly said. And a summer without the games could be a huge negative, he said.
Keeping the youngsters in the games, Stamboly said, is a plus beyond sports. He added: “You’re going to have a lot less problems than you see on the news today.”
(Conor Orr is a junior majoring in broadcast journalism and political science.)
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