By Don Doucette

Don Doucette is Athletic Director at Hamilton-Wenham (Mass.) Regional High School. He can be reached at: doucetted@hwschools.net.

For the majority of high school athletic departments, money is tight this year. Budgets are reduced and fewer fundraising dollars are coming in.

Here at Hamilton-Wenham (Mass.) Regional High School, the budget isn't just tight. It's non-existent. Two years ago, our school committee completely stopped funding athletic teams, leaving it up to parents and administrators to decide how to pay for sports.

Despite this, we have survived. Athletically, we have even thrived. And, over the past two years, I've learned a lot about working with parents and finding outside sources of revenue.

OUR STORY
In 2001, the student fee to participate in athletics at Hamilton-Wenham was a flat $200 per student-athlete, which was similar to other schools in our area. Every year since then, fewer and fewer dollars have been allocated from the school district budget to athletics, and the participation fee has steadily increased.

During the summer of 2005, the school district hired me as the full-time Athletic Director for the high school. At that time, the athletic operating budget covered 50 percent of the costs for all 23 varsity and junior varsity athletic teams and participation fees covered the rest. Fees were determined based on the cost of the specific sport, and ranged from $123 to $600. We operated this way the first two years I was here.

In the spring of 2007, the school committee informed us that there were insufficient funds in the operating budget to continue to support all 23 athletic teams the following school year. The committee suggested we cut three sports and raise fees even more. The negative response from the community was huge--not so much about raising the fees, but about cutting teams.

Two town meetings were scheduled and parents turned out in droves. It was standing room only as people stood shoulder to shoulder. The community said they'd do anything to keep programs. To them, cutting teams was unthinkable.

The school committee went back to the drawing board and looked at the numbers again. It determined that the only way to honor the community's wish was to require student-athletes to pay participation fees that would fully cover the cost of their sport. That included coaching stipends, uniforms, travel, equipment, and so on.

Luckily, cutting the job of athletic director was not on the table. The school had tried to function with a part-time athletic director in the past, which resulted in problems small and large. The community understood that, especially with the implementation of 100-percent user fees, an administrator was critical to holding the athletic program together.

Obviously, the increased fee presented a huge burden to families, especially those with several children involved in more than one sport. And for some sports, the fees would be quite high. For example, football players would need $1,400 to join the team. Located on the North Shore of Boston, our community has a fairly strong economic base, but parents were understandably concerned about these hefty price tags.

Therefore, a second component of the plan was to organize parents to develop fundraisers for their children's teams. Each athletic team would have a parent serve as its president and run its booster club. The more money each team brought in, the lower that squad's fees would be.

The challenge for me was taking on a new role. Suddenly, working with parents became a key part of my job. I needed to listen to parents' concerns about the situation and organize them into effective fundraising teams.

There are 275 to 325 students who participate in athletics each season at our high school, and I wanted to ensure none of them fell through the cracks. My open door policy has been critical, allowing me to establish a relationship with many parents and providing a venue to share different ideas on how to tackle our incredible funding deficit.

Especially at the beginning, much of my day was spent with parents in my office who were angry, concerned, or confused. I answered questions, let them vent, and listened with patience. I encouraged parents to visit with me and was continually empathetic with them, while also explaining the school committee's decision as many times as was needed. Many of them simply needed to complain to someone, and I was that person.

But I also saw these discussions as opportunities to get parents involved. We now needed them to do much more fundraising than they ever had in the past. After listening to their concerns, I told them exactly how they could help and why it was so important.

FIGURING OUT FEES
What does it mean to operate with 100-percent user fees? How do we calculate that into a dollar figure per athlete? And what do we do to help low-income families?

The first step of the process is similar to what all athletic departments do every year. In the spring, we formulate a budget for each sport, keeping expenses as low as possible. This process includes me meeting with the coach and booster president to discuss any adjustments in terms of monies needed or participation numbers. In addition, any money left in the sport's budget from last year is carried over. I then simply take the budgeted cost of the sport for the year and divide it by the number of participants typically on the team to find the cost per student-athlete.

I present this number to the booster president and it's up to the club to decide how much fundraising it wants to do. Each team has ownership over this decision and how its money raised is spent. In the past, most teams fundraised to pay for fancy end-of-season banquets and apparel. Now, most choose to have very simple parties at the end of the year and use fundraised dollars to lessen user fees.

The emphasis on sport-specific determination does result in discrepancies among sports. For example, because our track and field team has over 100 participants and a lot of parents who fundraise, its fees were only $232 this year. To play football, however, with 55 participants and a lot of costs, fees were $969. The lacrosse squad got its fees down to $370 with a lot of fundraising, while baseball was at $604, and tennis at $411.

We asked parents if they would prefer one large booster club and for everyone to pool resources, but they overwhelmingly preferred the sport-specific approach. There has been no resentment that one team's fees are higher than another's.

One of the keys to the process has been to have very strict rules as to when the fundraised money must be given to the school. The user fee remains at the level that covers the full cost of the sport until the team booster president presents me a check. The deadline for handing in money is about one month prior to the start of the season. If I don't receive a check by a certain date, the user fee remains as is.

Within three days of the private funding due date, I post adjustments for all teams that deposited a check, lowering the individual student-athletes' cost. This adjusted cost is the amount each student-athlete must pay at registration.

Another important component of the participation fees has been ensuring that those who can't afford them are still offered the opportunity to join a team. To make this happen, our school committee implemented a policy that all the teams use one-third of their gate receipts to provide scholarships for students in need for all sports. (Another one-third goes to capital improvements, and the final one-third goes back to the sport.)

Scholarships are based on three criteria: enrollment in our free or reduced priced school meals program, income eligibility based on a chart we have developed, and extenuating circumstances, which must be explained in a letter. Our building principal evaluates all applications and forwards his recommendations to me. In cases where a student did not qualify for a scholarship but was simply unable to pay, the booster clubs have paid the fee.

BEST IDEAS
Prior to the 100-percent fees, only a few of the larger athletic programs at our school had an active booster group. Now, all teams have a president and booster organization. The majority of the groups have a few very involved parents who organize fundraisers and recruit other parents and students to staff the events. The parents' increased involvement has been essential to the success of the programs.

For those sports that did not initially have a booster president, I worked hard to recruit parents for these positions. At every home contest, I always talk with parents and try to get to know them. From these conversations, I had a sense of who would make a good booster president, and I started asking people to step up to the role. Now that we have presidents in place, part of their job is to recommend someone to take over for them the next year, if needed.

Each group devises its own fundraisers, although they must clear the idea through me to ensure two teams are not doing the same thing and there are no red flags. I provide as much information to the clubs on what fundraising ideas work best and give them any resources that come my way.

It is also my responsibility to keep the booster presidents updated on school committee policy, state regulations, and compliance issues regarding fundraising. This includes a district policy that coaches may not direct fundraising projects. We also issue a handout of rules at the annual spring meeting and I explain the pros and cons of filing for 503(c) tax exempt status.

Over the past two years, we have found that some of the traditional fundraisers, such as golf tournaments, which are very labor intensive, don't bring in much money for the time they take. The more creative ideas have worked best.

Raffles involving hard-to-get items have been especially successful. For example, one team raffled off tickets to a Boston Celtics game, while another secured tickets to a Red Sox game. In these cases, all you need is one special item and the selling comes easy.

One of the most creative ideas has been a special "mall discount" night. The shops in our local mall agreed to offer reduced prices on items for a two-hour period one evening. The team then sold $12 tickets to the event, with part of the revenue going to the stores and another part to the team.

Another sport hosted "Hypnotist Night," hiring a local hypnotist to come to the auditorium and show off his skills. The team sold tickets to the event, which was very fun and successful.

The football team is currently organizing a miniature golf tournament. A local miniature golf course has donated a three-hour window to the team, with all profits supporting the football squad. This is proving much easier logistically than a full-blown golf fundraiser, and it is getting a lot of interest.

That doesn't mean we aren't doing bake sales and car washes, too. In fact, some teams raise as much as $2,000 with their car washes. But, increasingly, the creative ideas bring in the most money.

THE RESULTS
Overall, the entire process has worked extremely well. I can't say the situation has been easy--and I would not wish it on any other athletic department. But we overcame the hurdles, and we haven't skipped a beat in terms of fielding competitive teams.

The major negative was two team casualties. Two of our sport teams have had difficulties with the user fees and needed different solutions.

In boys' ice hockey fees were going to be $1,600 per student-athlete and we did not have enough students interested to cover the cost of the program. As an alternative, I located a neighboring school, Salem High, that had struggled with its registration numbers and was interested in forming a co-op team. Under the co-op program, our students each pay a $200 fee to participate, which was determined by Salem. The opportunity to continue to be able to play hockey outweighs the disadvantage of the 35-minute commute and the fact that our kids are no longer representing their own school.

Because co-op programs have become more and more difficult to form due to tougher restrictions, there was legwork involved in getting the state association to okay the team. I put on a presentation to both our league and Salem's league, which resulted in favorable votes for the team. Another presentation was needed to convince those who oversee our district in the state.

To get our student-athletes comfortable with the co-op idea, I put together a packet of information for all interested players and e-mailed parents who I knew wanted to be involved. I talked frequently to the athletic director at Salem and met with its hockey coach. I also put parents from our school in touch with parents from Salem.

The other casualty was our girls' softball team. Due to decreasing interest and the high user fee, we could not get enough girls to sign up in both 2008 and 2009. School district policy states that if a program does not operate for two consecutive years, it is no longer offered.

The good news, however, is that the total enrollment of participating student-athletes has remained consistent over the last three years despite the 100-percent fees. I have seen some multi-sport athletes choose different teams--they still go out for their favorite sport, but may choose a less expensive program, like track and field, as their second sport instead of baseball. But the number of students choosing not to participate at all appears very small if there are any. And I'm confident that we are providing scholarships to any child who needs it.

More good news is that the anger some parents had two years ago is dissipating and there is increased understanding of the situation. I spend less time listening and explaining, and the whole process is getting better and better.

A lot of athletic directors fear that this situation makes parents want more ownership of the teams, but we have been able to keep this from happening. From the very first day, I stuck to our policies preventing parental interference in coaching decisions. I listen to any complaints parents have, but if they start to talk about a coach's choices, I stop them immediately. Establishing this line very clearly at the start was critical.

The on-field results have also been very positive. We have won state championships this year in girls' cross country, boys' indoor track, and boys' tennis. As one of 14 schools in the competitive Cape Ann League, Hamilton-Wenham has finished fourth and fifth over the past two years in overall team standings covering all sports, capturing six league championships this year. This spring, six of our seven sports qualified for state championship play, with our baseball team falling just one game short.

PARENTS ARE KEY
If I were to give any advice to other athletic directors in a similar situation, it would be to recruit, motivate, and inform the parents on all levels so they stay involved and continue to support the programs. When you have no funding from the school, parents can no longer be seen as adversaries. Instead, they become your allies.

Our success is due somewhat to the structure and policies we put in place to make the system work. But it is mostly a result of the parents' ability to organize and fundraise. Without the parents' involvement, there is no fundraising, and without fundraising, we will lose programs.

Keep in mind that today's parents will do anything for their kids. If we can take that passion and use it where we need it most, we can all reach the same goals.

Sidebar: GOING WEST
Another school district dealing with self funding its athletic program is East Side Union in San Jose, Calif., the largest district in Northern California and the 12th biggest in the nation. A $2.1 million budget gap prompted Superintendent Bob Nunez to suggest cutting athletics completely, which would have left 11 schools and 26,000 students without their teams. Nunez later backed off on the idea, but said athletics would need to be self funded.

In response, athletic directors in the district are coming up with both short- and long-term plans for survival. The first move was cutting transportation for all teams, leaving parents and students to coordinate driving. Next was to limit the use of all but three district swimming pools, which will be shared by swim and water polo teams. Each school is also implementing a $200 participation fee--student-athletes have the option of paying $10 a month if needed and community members are creating an account to cover costs for families who can't afford it.

Fundraising is also in high gear. A 5K race held in May brought in $120,000. Schools are selling ticket packages for local professional teams and hCards, which offer discounts at many businesses.

For the long-term, ESUSD will propose a parcel tax that would help fund athletics, counselors, and other support staff. And athletic directors are rallying community members to help them come up with a more comprehensive strategy for fundraising.

"We are setting up a committee with local leaders who will do some grant writing, plan major fundraisers, and try to secure corporate donations," says Ed Buller, Athletic Director at East Side's Oak Grove High School. "We have over 7,000 athletes, so we need everyone working together and committed."

His advice to others who may face this situation? "Make sure you are involved with the administration at the district level so you can show them the different ways to make cuts and fundraise," Buller says. "It's also important to partner with the booster clubs and parents in order to get people on the same page.

"Everyone from the superintendent to the parents to the athletic directors to the mayor's office needs to realize how important athletics is for the student," he continues. "Let them know it keeps kids off the streets."

-- Kyle Garratt