Washington County may cut all frosh, soph sports

Economic concerns could mean an end to freshman and sophomore athletic teams in Washington County.

District officials said they had no choice but to trim athletics last week as they try to hack millions from the 2009-10 budget.

"When you're trying to cut $7.5 million, you have to look at everything," said Craig Hammer, executive director of secondary schools for the Washington County School District. "We cut $300,000 from the gifted and talented program. We cut two days off every district employees' contract; that's every teacher, administrator, custodian, secretary. We felt we had to do something with athletics."

The proposal is to cut all freshman and sophomore programs from the district's seven high schools for the 2009-10 school year, although not all of the schools have freshman and sophomore programs.

Hammer said the district subsidizes transportation for athletic events, gives each school $15,000 and pays for every school's coaches. He said even if the school board opts to change the planned cuts, there will have to be some cuts to athletics.

"I'm a sports guy," said Hammer, who also sits on the Utah High School Activities Association's Board of Trustees. "It's pretty hard politically to say we're cutting all of these things, but we're not going to touch sports."

Washington County School Board member Wes Christiansen, who works at Hurricane High and also serves on the UHSAA's BOT, said he can't think of a better way to serve the youths than to offer them athletic opportunities.

"With no farms, no chores, with all the technology, you can't do a better thing for kids than get them out on any field of play, doing something physical," said Christiansen. "I remember when I was a freshman and I got my football helmet. I slept in that helmet. Every study out there in the whole world says kids who are involved in activities are more successful. It's one of the only things that carries over into success in life."

Even though freshman programs are fairly new to high schools — in fact, all high schools don't even field freshman teams — for many coaches, it's been a way to develop players at a younger age.

"We've had good freshman participation, and that's one of the things that has made our programs successful," Christiansen said. "We were told it would save us $150,000, and I just can't come up with that ... I hope to reverse this."