Lack of money in our athletic budget is forcing changes upon our sports teams here at Placer High School.

 “The district gives high schools a stipend budget each year for sports. They have slowly cut back that amount of money given to us, and since 2005 we’ve lost $21,000 from our stipend budget,” explained Mark Lee, Placer High’s athletic director, about our financial situation.

 With these cuts being made, it’s nearly impossible to make all ends meet. Therefore, this year’s fall sports including girls’ volleyball, girls’ golf, boys’ soccer, football, and cross country are forced to make some sacrifices.

“We’ve had to work hard to maintain all sports and levels of each sport. We have to pay for officials, transportation, equipment, coaches, and uniforms, and our income isn’t enough to pay all those fees,” Mark Lee added. “Our only option was to cut back on transportation in order to keep all levels of each sport.”

 Although there appears to be no other solution to this issue, some athletes are understandably having a hard time with the changes, especially the fact that there won’t be buses this year.

“It’s hard not having buses because we have to get our parents to drive us to every away game, and it’s a very complicated process for parents to legally be able to drive other people,” claimed sophomore Lauren Collins on the JV volleyball team. “We also lose the team bonding and fun that always took place on the buses.”

Another way money is brought into the program is from donations, advertisements, and gate receipts [revenue from a sporting event from people paying to get in].

“We are grateful to receive donations from service clubs in the area including Rotary Club, Lions Club, and some individual donors. We also bring in money through advertisements and gate receipts,” Mark Lee stated.

            The gate receipts, however, are inconsistent throughout the season, meaning we can’t completely rely on that profit coming in.

However, this income is only able to cover the fees of the officials, equipment, coaches’ stipends, transportation, and uniforms. Additional money is brought in through each sport’s booster club, which fundraises to buy extra items for the teams, like warm up t-shirts for varsity players.

While persevering through the tough financial times, it is important that all the coaches, parents, athletes, etc. are on the same page.

“At Placer we are very fortunate to have such supportive coaches.” Mark Lee concluded. “All our coaches work together to support each other as well as their athletes, even in these hard times. They even have their teams attend other sports games to show support. It creates an excellent environment for athletes to be involved with.”