Prep athletics shouldn’t come at a high price

High school sports have become nationally chic. Publications like Sports Illustrated are running regular features. National networks are televising games.

While it’s nice to gain all that attention, there has also been cause for concern.

Stories have been written about how high school sports are being exploited commercially. The situation isn’t that dire – these are games after all. And in these times, any little bit of funding helps.

But it’s not entirely altruism that drives Nike to provide uniforms and equipment to certain schools or that ESPN and Fox networks are televising games that feature high-profile state programs. They have discovered a salable market.

That has brought six-figure revenue into some school programs and successful coaches are even being paid large booster stipends.

What drives the rabid psyche of towns throughout America to place their teams and lionized 17-year-olds on pedestals is hard to fathom here.

But a recent New York Times article, “High School Football, Under Prime-Time Lights,” reported that what used to be a community pastime is now Prime Time.

Certain high school teams fly around the country gaining national television exposure that coach/athletic director Bobby Bentley of James F. Byrnes High in Duncan, S.C., told the Times is broadening kids’ life experiences.

But Bentley was also quoted as saying, “I find myself studying marketing and business plans as much as I do game planning.”

Is that exploitation or merely the free-market system at work?

Last week it was revealed in the Seattle Times that Bellevue’s four-time state titlist coach Butch Goncharoff was paid $55,000 by the school booster club. That’s about 10 times greater than a typical coaching salary.

It raised hackles in some camps, but was defended by others, including (on our SportsLink blog) a former Bellevue player.

Paying out that much money at the high school level goes against the grain. Must we put a dollar value on every organ in our bodies and every minute of our time?

When we discussed the topic last Friday, GSL coach Matt Meithe said, “The true heart of a coach is not about money.”

It brought to mind the time when volunteerism was its own reward and produced the same results at less cost. You could play American Legion baseball for $40 a summer. Coaches were unpaid but produced high-finishing state teams. Today, Legion coaches make mid-four-figure salaries for a couple of months and it costs upward of $1,200 for a youngster to participate because of expanded travel.

Playing sports doesn’t come cheap and high schools are merely following the trend.

Certainly, high school coaches deserve recompense for extra time expended. But is it necessary to pay $55,000 and must teams require corporate subsidies or nationwide television exposure to survive?

The trend toward marketing high school sports and athletes seems to be at odds with the concept of public education. The idea was to provide educational opportunity for all.

If athletics fell under the umbrella of state funding, it wouldn’t entirely curtail the ambitions of some high-octane programs, but it could help most high school sports remain, rightfully, a community pastime.