You didn't think high schools were in trouble?

It's been a discussion here on my blog for months - high school sports, specifically here in Wake County, could be in trouble. Well, now Sports Illustrated has brought the national economy into the spotlight, and what they found about high school sports is disturbing.

In the Sports Illustrated article by Andy Staples, he discusses specific situations where school systems have completely shut down their athletic funding due to the lack of money.

I'd suggest reading the article. It's a very eye opening one, and it's something that North Carolina schools may have to deal with down the road.

Think about all of the state's school systems that didn't get the funding they needed. The two biggest school systems in the state - the Wake County Public School System and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools - both didn't receive the money they requested.

WCPSS may be in better shape than other systems, though. Schools and athletic departments in Wake County don't get the funding that schools in counties like Durham and Mecklenburg get.

In an interview with WRAL in April, WCPSS senior director of athletics Bobby Guthrie said his annual budget to run middle and high school athletic programs in the county is somewhere around $150,000. In a budget as large as Wake County's, Guthrie's budget is a small drop in the bucket.

Some other highlights about Wake County funding:

• Guthrie said CMS purchases security and officials for their schools, and that they provide several thousand dollars cash up front to their schools at the beginning of the year. He added that Durham, New Hanover, Cumberland and Forsyth Counties give their schools more up front and in incentives.
  • Wake County gives its athletic departments $945 up front that they can spend on whatever they want. Most of the time, that money goes towards paying for catastrophic insurance, and it isn't even enough to cover that.
• Guthrie spends about $4,500 per school on swimming pool rentals.
• He spends about $1,600 per school on paint and lime.
• The Office of Growth and Management purchases accident insurance for athletes, and Guthrie said that was somewhere between $8 and $10 per athlete.

Luckily, the N.C. High School Athletic Association has the Endowment Fund that can be used to battle these problems here in North Carolina. The fund has made the NCHSAA the most stable state association in the country.

In order to help ensure stability, the individual schools are going to have to crank up the booster club! That is where most of the money for athletics in Wake County comes from, and I think you'll see more of that across the state.

What do you think about the issue? What can we do to make sure high school athletics are not done away with in North Carolina? Are we doing enough?