fhspress.com Mustang Stampede Foothill High School

Athletic funding is spread all around

By ANTHONY ESCUE
fhspress.com Co-Sports Editor
Class of 2012

Have you noticed the new varsity baseball field, or perhaps how basketball has new jerseys? If you have, it's because some sports have greater funding than others.

Football is one sport that generates a lot of money, compared to the other sports. Some of the money raised through football is spread out to help other sports.

Most sports at our school do fundraisers, but some naturally have more funds than others, because the budget is designed that way. Some of the more popular sports have more reserves than others, while the smaller teams have to scrape funding together.

The two sports that generally come to mind are football and basketball, because they usually have new uniforms and equipment. In fact, those teams haven't always had their field or court the way it is now.

The Foothill High School stadium was completed in 2004, only eight years ago. Now it might seem like that's a long time, but the school has been open since the mid 1960's, and the football team didn't have an adequate place to play for all those years.

The basketball team has won two state championships, and we have quite a nice gym, but the current bleachers and air conditioning were only put in around 2005.

Funding wise, those sports do have a bit more money, than say, tennis or track, but all are important to the students who play those sports. The track team had its track and field in place as soon as the stadium was finished, but there were no tennis courts at Foothill until around 07-08.

All in all, funding is a huge issue with sports, and sometimes, without funding, things can fall through. What teams need is more support from parents. If we can get help from parents, our sports teams can get better equipment and afford to win.

anthony.escue@fhspress.com

FOOTHILL HIGH SCHOOL fhspress.com SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA