Recession Squeezes Everyone

Coaching stipends are being slashed. Vice principals are being forced to double as athletic directors. Trainers' salaries are being eliminated - And that's just in the Manhattan Beach Unified School District. The sagging economy is pummeling high school athletic departments throughout Southern California, with nearly every school being hit in some way.

In the Long Beach Unified School District, most high schools will experience additional cuts in site budgets for the 2009-10 school year. This will increase the need to rely more on the fund raising efforts of boosters clubs, parents and student athletes who are already giving extra time, energy and dollars to keep sport programs running at a high level. Additionally, the Board of Education adopted a resolution on June 16 that preserved its ability to reduce employee compensation in 2009-10 if necessary.

"It's a bad deal for everybody," said Thom Simmons, a spokesman for the California Interscholastic Federation's Southern Section, the governing athletic body for 571 local schools. "When tax revenue is down, the level of services has to go down. And any time you have to cut services, whether it's for drama, band or athletics, it's just a bad deal."

High schools are not the only institutions to feel the pinch of the economy in athletics. It is being implemented at every level. UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero said, "With the state -- and their university -- struggling through difficult economic times; that He, UCLA football Coach Rick Neuheisel and head basketball Coach Ben Howland have agreed to take pay cuts of 10% this year.

The three men volunteered to take cuts that were mandated for other state employees even though, because they have multi-year contracts, they were not subject to a reduction. Neuheisel was hired in December 2007 for $1.25 million a season and incentives that could add $500,000 a year. Howland received salary and incentives last year totaling $2.17 million. Guerrero recently had his base salary raised to $465,000. Needing to slash his annual budget, the athletic director said he was looking for additional areas to save. "We haven't yet approached other coaches," he said. "But we will."

How did we get to this point? What's next? Thank you to all of you who have done more with less for so many years. Fight the good fight. May the force be with you always.