'Pay to Play' Taking Spirit Out of Sports

At the 's most recent meeting, held Jan. 25, athletics committee chairman Tim Walsh reported that the public school's pay to participate requirement has shown to be a deterrent in getting middle and high school students involved in the sports programs offered to them.

Pay to play, which was first implemented in September 2010, accounts for the annual steady decrease in students signed up for sports -- anywhere from five to ten percent a year, Athletic Director John Niski estimates.

Fees range from $100 to $300, with a $600 cap per family. (See attached .pdf for specific breakdown of costs and more details).

“In the fall last year, we went from 349 male students participating down to 321. Not a huge, huge decrease, but a decrease,” Niski said. "For 2011-2012, we've got 293."

Niski said girls' sports have taken a big hit. "Because numbers were low in the girls' basketball program, we combined the girls' freshmen and girls' junior varsity teams into just a single JV team. So we didn’t have a freshmen girls basketball schedule this year. That was the most significant scheduling impact we’ve had."

SOPHOMORE SLUMP

Underclassmen athlete enrollment numbers have also dropped, particularly amongst grade 10. According to Niski, 310 sophomores participated in the 2009-2010 school year. That decreased to 211 for 2010-2011, and "up until this point in the year we have 115, but we still have spring sports to go so it's kind of tough to compare the apples to the oranges.'

"Last year we had 40 freshmen football players, and coming back as sophomores we only had 12," Niski added.

The return rate is particularly low for this student group because the competition for playing time can be tough, making the dollar cost to be on the team outweigh the benefit.

"The sophomores are your junior varsity players who are competing with incoming freshmen and kids that are in the junior class for spots on a team. So typically they don’t get a whole lot of playing time unless they're very talented sophomores," Niski said. "So what a lot of kids are doing is deciding to take the sophomore year off. They're not going to play $300 to get limited playing time."

'UNIQUE' SPORTS SUFFER

Niski said another factor that comes into play is "unique sports," such as wrestling, swimming and tennis, which have all seen a dip in numbers. In fact, no freshmen boys came out for swimming this season.

"No one does wrestling before they come to high school so the first opportunity someone get to participate is at the high school level," he said. "So a kid’s not going come to high school and say 'Gee, I’m gonna pay $300 and maybe not like it.'"

Before, Niski said, coaches could convince students to try out for a sport with the assurance that there would be nothing to lose.

Shelton offers a variety of youth sports programs, but only for a limited number of sports. These more popular activities are least affected by pay to play at the higher levels.

"Basketball and football kids come in, they’ve played youth and are looking forward to moving up in high school. They’ve developed those skills and already know they're going to be a basketball or football player," Niski said.

Both boys and girls soccer were not affected by pay to play. "I think that’s a testament to the youth program that we still have excellent numbers," Niski said.

IMPACT AND MOVING FORWARD

Niski said he is "very concerned with the impact that this is going to have on our programs --now, this year and years after because the younger kids aren’t invested and aren’t being trained."

However, he said he understands that in current economic times, the Board of Aldermen and community members have to make difficult choices on how to spend the city budget.

"The Board is doing what they have to do with the limited funds that they receive and zero percent increases over the last three years," Niski said.

This past year, the most expensive pay to play fee was reduced from $400 to $300, which was a "great help." Niski said the Board is considering reducing that cost again.

"I think it needs to be reduced down to a reasonable figure that people would expect to pay, maybe $100. If the amount was in line with other towns and other activities within our town, then I think response from parents and students would be better. You couple all of that with that fact that people are still out of jobs, it’s really affecting us here," Niski said.

What do you think of pay to play? Has it affected your family?

Editor's note: A second part of this article with input from parents will be published. Stick with Shelton Patch for updates.