Comments about ‘Number of games may be cut’

Region 9 is a lopsided mess, and it has been for years. I sat in Steve Hodson's(Formerly Canyon View's AD) office 7 years ago and looked at reasonable ways to fix the direction we were headed. It's funny he talked of people who disagreed with his position and his view of how St.George was growing. Seems now he was more right than his nemesis' in Region 9. Judging by his record on the court against them he usually was...
UHSAA has only muddled the mess. Desert Hills open with more kids than Washington County School District said they would(imagine that) They are going to have 4A numbers within 12 months, what do you do then? It's a good thing for the UHSAA that Region 9 is locked in a corner of Utah most ignore(*see Uintah)

has become a national wrestling powerhouse. For example our wrestlers last year placed sixth out of the 50 states at the Senior Nationals and crowned 10 All-Americans. This despite the fact, our wrestlers, spend less time on the mat in their high school season than just about every state. I would hate to see our wrestlers (and athletes in general) lose opportunties to compete, especially when our state is making huge strides competitively in many sports, particularly wrestling.

I also believe in site-base management. Let individual districts and schools take a crack at their own travel and missed school issues first. I think a bottom up solution is in order rather than some state mandate.

Why not just cut out the out of state games that they play?

There is a much easier alternative to cutting games. The realignment should have been done a different way...according to geographical regions. Yes there might be some bigger schools vs. some smaller schools. BUT, it is better to play than NOT to play at all. And THEN bring the enrollment numbers back for each of the 5 state tournament, they all go to ONE site for the state tourney all at one time. No stupid games at home sites the week before and things like that.

Hopefully the BOT will hear the voice of the masses and reevaluate their decision honestly. Uintah's situation is absurd. Just move them to 4A and get it over with.

I'm not familiar with what pot the money comes out of for football teams to travel, but if it's in any way coming out of any funds that are budgeted for a school's football program, then the education fund is being tapped, and if the education fund is being tapped, hmmmmmm.....wonder why this state's education system is so screwed up. I love sports. Don't take away from sports, the athletes, the fans, the communities.

Take away from the educators that are running this state. Much has to change. It can either be a very slow change, or a fast acting change. But as long as the powers to be are running this state's education system, then our children and athletes will always suffer. They probably won't know any different, because that's all they, and we as ignorant parents know. I've lived out of state, seen a better education, and sports system in place. I know the difference.

In my opinion the UHSAA is just a big joke. Yeah it is good for some things... but overall, they are horrible. We need a new governing body for high school sports. The UHSAA will never get it right... EVER!

the UHSAA is ran by who? The educators in our state. If they see too much money going to sports, and not educators, then they'll pull from it. Hence, this proposal being made.

Does anybody have an email address to the UHSAA, so we can voice our opinions?

I think if one classification has to cut activities, all should. That seems only fair. I also think the cuts should be equal across all sports. Why is one sport more important than another? What is the message we are sending here? Schools push the equality thing when it suits them, when it doesn't matter they pull what ever they choose. Cutting out of state games is not the answer either. For those schools that are located on the border it is actually closer for them to pick up games with out of state schools than travel instate.

It's all about money. To have the stands full week after week at football homes games brings in a ton of revenue. Money will make a lot of decisions.

The 4A regions would be very unbalanced if Provo was moved back to Region 7. Compare the two regions...

7
Provo, Timpview, Orem, Timpanogos, Mountain View, Lehi, Saratoga Springs. (All 1300-1500 Kids)

8
Unitah, Springville, Mapleton, Salem Hills, Spanish Fork, Payson (All close to 1000 kids)

Not very balanced!! Send Provo and Timpview to region 8 and Uintah to Region 7.

we would rather be 4a this play in 3a and state in 4a is stupid, move us up.

We speak English in America. No idea what you are talking about.

Remember the UHSAA Executive Directors (David Wilkey, Robb Cuff, Bart Thompson etc.) are not making these decisions, these are being made by the UHSAA Board of Trustees made up of your local administrators in most cases. Sending the directors e-mails is useless, they merely execute the decisions of the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee (also made up of administrators).

As someone who works in a school district and orders buses for extra-curricular activities, there is something missing in this picture. In the district where I work no thought is given to having teams travel to the same venue together. For instance, why couldn't the regions arrange it so that when girls tennis is playing in one location, so does girls soccer? They could travel together. The same could be said for many combinations of teams. This would cut transportation costs for games by half!

As it is now in the region where I work, there is so much waste of gas just because no thought is given to this approach. It would mean cooperation between groups, but how hard is that? Why isn't anyone doing this? It's not that hard and programs, games and matches wouldn't have to be cut.

By cutting 4-A, 5-A baseball back 2 games here's what you'll save. Let's assume you cut 1 home and 1 away game for JV and Varsity each. You save $200 in umpires and $250 in bussing. So congratulations you save a school a whopping $450 a year and cheat the kids. Do you really expect us with knowledge to think for one second that this proposal has merit. I'll give you $500 out of my fundraisers to keep my two games. You can spend the extra $50 on more bottled water for your staff.

I am a coach at a high school and I want to add more games to the season and not take them away. I would gladly pay extra for those games anyway. Most states have 3 scrimmages in all sports before the season we cant even have one. Please, please think before doing this. This is a terrible idea. Add the option to add more games and not take them away. Some states play up to almost 30 games a year and guess what they play better baseball because they play more. Don't cheat the athletes.

After the mess the UHSAA made of region 9, how can anyone lend a shred of credibility to them? This issue will prove once again, despite your plea coach, that the athletes are not the concern of the UHSAA.

HEY, lets cut the ENDOWMENT FOOTBALL AND BASKETBALL GAMES. These are the extra games (above and beyond the scheduled games) which are allowed by UHSAA. HOWEVER to host an endowment game, all people thru the gate (including students, band members, cheerleaders, etc.) must pay the specified $6 cover charge. Then ALL gate receipts go directly to the UHSAA budget, ie- bypasses the host schools.

By my calcs, this is a huge windfall for UHSAA. Let's assume: out of the 127 schools, there are 50 FB games statewide, attendance average statewide 1000 = $300k, BB (which includes some 1A teams which don't have FB, plus add the girls teams) 100 games = $600k, total income to UHSAA = $900,000.

Do you think they'll voluntarily CUT these games for the sake of "soaring gas prices and time away from school"?????

Another cost saving measure would be use local umpires for the games, you won't have to pay the refs extra milege fees, play double headers on saturdays, soccer, softball, wrestling matches, ect. More often than you know, officials are brought in from 100 miles away, when local officals are just as qualified.