Another Interesting Article from a Contributor

This was sent to me yesterday.

Before I share this I want to say that I am a fan of high school sports and this is not an attack on the football program, just pointing out waste in the county.

Take a look at this picture from press day at Ridgeview.

If you count the black shirts in this picture it appears as if the football program at Ridgeview has 13 coaches. One of them is the equipment manager, so that takes the number down to 12. Of these 12, how many are paid? This appears to be overkill at the max, a situation of keeping previous coaches to not hurt anyone's feelings? Some reading this will be offended because I am attacking high school football, the nerve, right?

Well let's take a look at this for a minute and then you decide if it is unfair. Within a 100 mile radius there are 4 college football programs, let's take a look at the number of coaches each of them have for a minute.

Bluefield College- 5 Coaches- http://bcrams.com/coaches.aspx?path=football&

Emory and Henry College- 11 Coaches- http://www.gowasps.com/sports/fball/coaches/index_football

UVA Wise- 12 Coaches- http://www.uvawisecavs.com/coaches.aspx?path=football

University of Pikeville- 12 Coaches-http://upikebears.com/coaches.aspx?path=football&

So our HIGH SCHOOL has the same amount of coaches as two of the local colleges and more than the other two. This is completely absurd!

What aggravates me is that we cut music and drama from the middle school but this program did not receive any cuts! Why?

Looking at the finances of high school football makes it even more puzzling as to why this was not considered as a way of saving money or even a program. NONE of the coaching salaries are paid by the team from their money, all of the money comes from the school system's budget. While this does not seem like much, they are paid around $2,000 each per year, which would be over $20,000. While I understand that the team needs more than one coach, it does not need 12 of them!

Please understand that high school football is a revenue generating sport that can sustain itself without help from the county. How you ask? Gate revenue alone will sustain it and would allow it to pay some of its own coaching expenses. Think about it this way, if the average attendance to home games is 1,000 people it would make $6,000 for that week alone. With half of the games being home games that is $30,000 a year without accounting for big crowds. I think it is safe to say that the team made over $50,000 last year. While the team does have to recondition equipment and replace some of it, it has money left over to buy stuff. Don't believe me take a ride up to Ridgeview and walk down the sidewalk and see the big set of tires they just purchased (assuming they purchased them, it would be a very large donation) to strength train with, even though they have a very nice weight room.

This county needs to focus on fairness for all students, not just the select few that choose to play a sport. Also if this is a supervision issue why does the track program have only 3 coaches and over 75 athletes?