All high schools are not created equal.

If a teen attends high school in Price or Mt. Pleasant, he will have fewer opportunities than a student athlete who attends school in Provo or Salt Lake City.

That's because the current system forces schools to fund their own athletic programs and extracurricular activities. So while some schools have dozens of choices, others are lucky to have a handful. While some students work out in nicer facilities than many junior colleges, others rely on the conditioning and strength training provided by P.E. classes and playing three or four sports in a school year. Some enjoy turf, while others play in city parks and on public fields that are barely maintained.

I travel to these various fields and gymnasiums and it has always bothered me. I have tried to understand how I can sit at a softball field that doesn't have bleachers or a scoreboard when a few hundred yards away there is a beautiful baseball field that not only has an electronic scoreboard and stadium seating, but a concessions stand and an announcer.

Then I go to another school and they don't even have a "home" field as the games are played at a city park or nearby junior high. Sometimes the difference are so significant, they leave me feeling like the Utah High School Activities Association or state school board should try to find a way to collect all of the athletic fees and distribute them more evenly.

Everyone acknowledges the differences — sometimes even among schools in the same district. The Haves are rich with opportunity, even for the mediocre, while the Have-Nots struggle to provide the basics to their students.

Those disparities have become even more noticeable, and lately more troubling, in these difficult economic times as schools, and more often districts, try to balance budgets that are mathematically impossible. The choices those administrators are making are painful and most of the time necessary. But sometimes, I just can't follow the logic.

A few weeks ago, each region submitted to the UHSAA staff paperwork listing ways in which the schools in the 19 regions were reducing travel for teams and reducing the amount of class time students miss school for activities and athletics.

It is an endeavor principals have been engaged in for many years, but lately it has taken on an urgency created mostly by budget shortfalls.

1A, 2A and 3A principals agreed to make some uniform reductions in a few sports early this winter. I disagreed with those cuts as I thought they were mostly an emotional reaction to misplaced criticism. I still haven't seen how cutting two baseball games (when you're already playing doubleheaders) actually saves serious money.