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A couple of similar issues cropped here in my neck of the woods the last couple of years. First was at a middle school, which didn’t have fields for baseball or softball. They were bussed to a city facility for their home games as has been done for many years now. Well, one season the AD told the girls to drive to the field, which is about a mile from the school, because they didn’t have funding for buses because of some snafu or snow days or something like that. Since the budget had not been set for the next year, this didn’t affect the boys, whose budget was adjusted once they saw what happened with the girl’s team. Well, ONE PARENT complained and didn’t get the answer she wanted. So, she called the school board and said “Title IX” and then all hell broke loose. The district started looking at things and realized that a lot of girls’ programs were not funded equally to the boys, so they had a potential mess on their hands. To “fix” the problem they first built a brand new softball field at the middle school, complete with lights. Problem is the games start at 4:00, so they are done before the sun goes down. So the lights are NEVER turned on. Now, the boys still have to play at the city park, but the girls, who were barely able to field a team this year, have a brand new field with nice bleachers, lights, concession booth, ticket booth (for the dozens of mostly parents who bother to show up) and all the amenities you could imagine.

Now, at my son’s HS they had a similar issue. The girl’s field, which the softball boosters had just raised money to put lights on, was deemed “inadequate”. So, AGAINST the wishes of the softball parents, they tore the field up, threw away the brand new lights and made a field in a completely different area of the property, complete with all the same amenities the middle school field had, including a really nice scoreboard and state of the art lighting. Meanwhile the baseball boosters raised money for new WOODEN LIGHT POLES to replace the 20+ year old existing ones. They also wanted to build a brick backstop to make the field look more like others in the conference. They were told they couldn’t and so the poles sit piled up at the edge of the middle school baseball parking lot rotting away. Lighting at the old field is ancient and costs almost as much per game as the softball lights do per season, but they can’t be replaced, nor can the POLES they sit on be replaced because then they would have to spend the same amount on the girls even though they just spent thousands of dollars building a field no one wanted in the first place.

My favorite thus far (and something I am sure will come back to bite them) was the cheerleaders for the football team. Football boosters raise a ton of money each year, but have to in order to maintain adequate, well, everything. One part of that was feeding the team on away games at restaurants. Well, they traveled to a school a good distance away for playoffs two years ago and the plan was to stop and have a team meal on the way. Fine and dandy except that the cheerleaders rode the buses with the coaches and team. Now, the cheerleader PARENTS wanted the football boosters to pay for the cheerleaders’ meals as well. Football boosters told them they could pay for their meals on their own if they wanted to, but the football boosters paid for the team and coaches only. It was suggested that the cheerleaders forms their own booster organization to raise money for the future. Well, you would have thought they had suggested the girls start stripping for meals! They were outraged that someone dare suggest parents pay for their darling little Snowflake’s meals!

So, last season when the team traveled and had to eat at a restaurant the boosters again paid for the team and coaches. The cheerleaders packed bag meals and ate on the bus. Needless to say this has not sat well with the cheerleader parents. To their credit, the football boosters decided that since all but 2 away games were close enough to eat locally, they had my church open it’s doors to the team to have a catered meal before the games. Cheerleader parents could feed now feed their precious little Snowflakes at home or take them out before boarding the bus to leave.

It is really getting ridiculous with the whole “equal” crap. If they want to be “fair”, have each sport raise their own money from ticket sales, etc. and pay for their stuff that way. But, that wouldn’t be “fair” because no one comes to watch girl’s sports, so they are at a “disadvantage” and thus must be subsidized in order to survive.

Isn’t this a GREAT system?