Three Reasons

(Editor's Note: A Maine Principals' Association (MPA) committee is scheduled to discuss and probably vote on a number of proposals affecting high school sports in Maine later today. Though I think there are a handful of other reasons to find most of the proposals distasteful, the three listed below are, I believe, the most compelling.)

Scope of financial savings is unclear
Speaking on WJAB's "Weekend Jab" last weekend (sorry, the interview isn't archived), Cheverus High School athletic director Gary Hoyt estimated the three ideas--reducing the regular season schedule by two, limiting non-countable games to two, and limiting the number of playoff-eligible teams in Heal point sports--would save his school between $5,500 and $7,500 per year, but added that such savings do not take into account the possible losses in revenue from gate receipts and tournament earnings (Hoyt mentioned a pre-season hockey tournament that yields approximately $9,000).

Lewiston High School athletic director Jason Fuller and Kennebunk High athletic director Marty Ryan echoed Hoyt's findings. Fuller, paraphased in a January 18 Lewiston Sun Journal article: "Cutting games will save money, but the savings are minimized by lost gate receipts and concession sales, Fuller said." And Ryan, quoted in a January 25 Portland Press Herald story: "Kennebunk's Ryan calculated his school would save $6,100 if those measures are passed. 'But,' he quickly added, 'at the same time we'd lose some revenue, because of lost (home) games.'"

And Westbrook Schools superintendent Stan Sawyer, writing in an American Journal op-ed last week (sorry, no link) states: "[The MPA's] proposal is not the most effective way to address the financial issues we are facing in school sports. On the contrary, we strongly believe that [their] approach will not find much savings, if any."

To be sure, the plural of anecdote is not data. But I've waded through the most informational media mentions these proposals have garnered and do not recall reading or hearing even one proponent (come to think of it, I think the MPA executive director Dick Durost has been the only full-throated proponent on record) cite specific--or general, for that matter--dollar figures in regards to savings. Moreover, claims that some schools would be forced to chop whole sport programs if these proposals aren't enacted have only been vague and unspecified.

The proposal to limit the number of non-countable games is misguided
Though Durost has always framed the issue of non-countable games as a question of fairness (it is not fair, the argument goes, to allow one deep-pocketed school to play, say, seven non-countable games, while a less-fortunate school can afford only two exhibition games), it should be seen through an economic lens. Consider, for example, the Maine High School Invitational Hockey Tournament. Besides occupying southern Maine's ice arenas during what I assume is a relatively slow holiday season, this year's edition included twenty-four (by my count) non-Maine teams. That means Maine's service sector--hotels, restaurants, shops--were able to reserve hotel rooms, fill bellies, and sell goods that otherwise would not have been occupied, eaten, or sold. Paradoxically, the MPA is pushing for the reduction of a yet-to-be-determined amount of tax dollars by eliminating an event that, well, generates tax dollars.

Now, to be fair, this event is an outlier among non-countable events, but it is emblematic of the positive economic and competitive impacts non-countable exhibitions and tournaments yield for various programs. Booster programs' coffers are bolstered (Westbrook's soccer boosters, for example, benefit from the annual Calpine pre-season tournament the Blue Blazes host each August) and teams willingly travel to various tournaments to play a cost-efficient number of extra games, often against teams they would otherwise not compete against.

Why do I get the feeling that this is the response you'd receive if you pressed the proponents of this proposal for even a rudimentary cost-benefit analysis surrounding the implementation of this idea?

Reducing the number of countable games would set a dangerous precedent and perhaps begin (continue?) Maine high school sports' march toward irrelevance
Despite my lack of legal training, I appreciate the power of precedent. The gradual revamping of the football schedule, for example, ensures the idea of Westbrook traveling to Bangor for a season-opening game (as they did in the 1970s) no longer passes the straight-face test. And I understand the past death of New England championships for team sports ensures I'll probably never match my late father's accomplishment of winning a New England championship in soccer (he played on the 1972 Gorham Rams team that defeated Massachusetts's Cathedral High, 2-0). I get that. Indeed, it is this respect for the power of precedence--coupled, of course, with the seemingly dubious claims of savings--that causes me to balk at the proposal for a reduction in countable games.

As it stands today, there are fourteen games in a soccer season and eighteen in each basketball and ice hockey. So, if the proposal to reduce the number of countable games was enacted, there would 12, 16, and 16 games in each season, respectively. Now, who's to say that next year or two years from now, the number of countable games won't be pared even smaller? Or, that five years from now I won't find myself in a similar position arguing why eight games for a regular season in soccer is too few? This, I am afraid, is not merely an academic exercise. The three sports I cited--soccer, basketball, and ice hockey--are particularly vulnerable to encroachment by non-school sports programs (read: club soccer, AAU or club basketball, and junior hockey). And though I may be wading in hyperbole--and, frankly, I hope I am being hyperbolic--I am concerned a reduction in games--and the precedence it sets--for each of these sports poses an existential threat, a gradual slouching toward irrelevance.

High school sports in Maine already face a daunting challenge recruiting demand for its product (this is, after all, the age of niche entertainment), so why would its supposed protectors enact policies that would weaken its supply, especially when the prospects for actual savings are so relatively small, if they even exist at all?

- John C.L. Morgan

Disclosure: I've been an assistant coach in Westbrook's soccer program for the last two years.