Part 1: As school districts look to save, athletic programs lose out

(FIRST OF THREE PARTS)

Even when it’s not basketball season, Brock Tesdahl likes to shoot baskets in the gym at Crosby-Ironton High School. The sophomore was part of the Rangers team that finished second in Class 2A at the boys’ state tournament in March, and he’s already thinking about next season. But his junior year might be the last chance he gets to play high school basketball.

Like a growing number of schools in Minnesota, Crosby-Ironton is facing a crisis in funding sports and other activities for its 357 high school students. After local voters turned down a levy last fall, the district announced that all high school and middle school activities would be cut in the 2008-09 school year.

Fundraising appears to have saved activities at Crosby-Ironton for one year, but after that the ax is likely to fall. And without high school sports, what next?

“It would be horrible for our community,” Tesdahl said. “I can’t even imagine it happening. It would be a disaster.”   

Other warning signs are being seen around the state.

• Grand Meadow, a school in southern Minnesota with 107 high school students, has announced it will not offer softball, baseball or golf next year.

• In Brainerd, which has 1,964 high school students, 17 of 29 varsity sports were on the chopping block until community members formed a non-profit group and a new funding mechanism to save them.

• In Lakeville, where more than 3,300 students attend two suburban high schools, activity fees have risen dramatically this spring and will rise further next year. Early returns are not good — some rosters are 40 percent smaller than a year ago. Within two years, officials at Lakeville North and Lakeville South may have to consider eliminating some teams.

Funding problems affect the classroom first, and schools all over the state are making cuts in educational areas. But the longtime traditions of school sports, band, choir, speech, debate and other activities also are endangered as money becomes tighter.

“I’m not impressed right now with the state of publicly funded schools in the state of Minnesota,” Grand Meadow Superintendent Joe Brown said. “In fact, if we’re not careful, Minnesota is going to be become another Mississippi with a windchill.”

 Jim Richardson, an assistant Grand Meadow wrestling coach, works with youth in other sports as well as in the school weight room. He’s also the one-man police department in a community of fewer than 1,000 people, and he would rather deal with teenagers as a coach than as a cop.

“Kids are going to be active, and do we want them involved in activities or do we want them active on the street at night?” Richardson said.

“I get both aspects of that, and I can truly tell you that most of the kids that law enforcement in general deal with are the kids that don’t have these opportunities. And if we take the tools away in any town, but especially in a small town like this, it shows its face relatively fast.”

•••

The crises in Crosby-Ironton, Grand Meadow, Brainerd and Lakeville grew exponentially last year when voters said no to increasing property taxes as a way to help their local schools. And with public schools in Minnesota facing more financial stress amid a worsening economy, sports teams are inching ever closer to extinction, even though sports and other cocurricular activities often make up only 1 to 2 percent of a school’s budget.

Activity fees have become commonplace in Minnesota schools. The fee to play a sport in Lakeville is $230. It will be $230 at Crosby-Ironton beginning next fall, and in Brainerd the fee will be $380 in 2008-09. But activity fees can be a double-edged sword, because higher fees often mean fewer athletes.

“We’ll probably have to sit back and reexamine how we’re doing business,” Lakeville North athletic director Byron Olson said. “Because if our numbers are down while we’re increasing fees, are our revenues increasing like we thought they would be? Or are they taking a step backwards?”

At Armstrong and Cooper high schools in the Robbinsdale district, budget cuts mean many teams on the seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade levels will be eliminated in the fall unless private funds are raised to save them. Last week, the William W. and Nadine M. McGuire Family Foundation announced it was giving $300,000 to be used toward after-school academic, arts and athletic programs that were cut or reduced at Cooper and three middle schools. The grant will also fund scholarships to help students pay activity fees.

Parent and student groups are attempting to raise funds for individual teams. For example, $13,000 must be raised to save volleyball in 2008-09 for 300 students in seventh through ninth grades at several middle schools and Armstrong High. Armstrong varsity volleyball coach Karl Katzenberger said $6,000 has been raised through such methods as car washes and donations.
“I am asking anyone I can at this late hour to please help our cause,” he said.

For the White Bear Lake School District, it cost $17,000 to fund Alpine skiing last year. That contribution will shrink to between $4,000 and $5,000 next season as families take on a $250 participation fee and pay for additional costs.

Making activities affordable for families is a major issue. During Olson’s six years as athletic director in Lakeville,  activity fees have gone from $90 to $110 to $150 and now $230. He fears that some families are being priced out.

“We would hate to see only the affluent families be able to participate,” he said.

•••

In the Crosby-Ironton gym, Brock Tesdahl still is working hard, hoping to relive the memories of last season when the Rangers energized their community during a 32-1 campaign.

Tesdahl’s brother Bryce capped his senior year by helping the Rangers get to the state championship game, where their season ended with a narrow loss to New London-Spicer. Bryce Tesdahl will continue his basketball career at Bemidji State University next season, but like his brother he worries about the future.

“Sports in Crosby has always meant a lot,” Bryce Tesdahl said. “And it would be a huge, huge defeat for the community and the kids if they didn’t have sports. That’s what kids here live for.

“I still get letters from people in the community thanking me for what the basketball team meant to everybody.”

The ultimate concern at Crosby-Ironton is that if the school doesn’t offer sports and other activities, families will move, no newcomers will arrive and the school will wither away.

“Sports is a huge part of what schools do,” Crosby-Ironton athletic director Dave Niemi said. “This is about opportunities for kids.”

Being one of the youngest players on the basketball team, Brock Tesdahl played only one minute during the state tournament in March. But sitting on the bench at Target Center and listening to a huge crowd of Rangers fans chanting “Go, C-I, Go!” made him realize even more what his sport means to him and how he would feel if it disappeared.

“It’s tough,” he said. “It’s always in the back of your mind. If I couldn’t play basketball my senior year, that would be really tough.”