Pay To Play

We have an athletic budget that helps out each sport. To supplement that we have a dug out club that is run by the players parents and anyone else that wants to help out. They raise money by donations and fundraising events. It costs our kids nothing to play financially. We are from a very small town and a large county that stretches from the Raleigh Durham area all the way to the Virginia State line. Our Athletic budget pays for baseballs umpires and and lights. Every four years we get one set of uniforms. The dug out club takes care of everything else and thats alot. I would suggest that you have a meeting with your parents and tell them that you need their help. It has worked wonders for us. We have four paid posistions two varsity and two jv. All other coachs are on volunteer status and are not paid. We also hold a all around skills camp each July and a hitting camp in the fall. This has been very sucessfull in raising money and also has helped our program baseball wise. We let the parents know up front the envolment in the club is strickly voluntary and has nothing to do with who makes the team and playing time. We have a booster club at the school but the money that is raised by the schools booster club goes into the general athletic budget and is given to the sports that need it the most. The reason we started the dug out club is because parents of baseball players who raise money want it to go to the sport that their son plays not tennis or track etc. Good Luck

Our booster club dues are $50 per family. Each players fundraising obligation is $300.00, but in essence our kids play for free, because even if they do not raise a dime or pay dues they cannot be left out of play. The booster club raises money to take care of our facilities, additional uniforms, equipment, tournament fees, senior gifts, baseball yearbook, end of year dinner and anything else you can think of that may be associated with the team. It costs about 30K a year to keep us going. We are constantly coming up with new ways to raise money. The school takes money at the gate which pays for buses and umpires. The school just got one set of new home uniforms for varsity, the old ones were literally falling apart. There is no money in our school system to support any type of sports, so parent booster clubs here are a neccessity. Football is the exception because their attendance at the gate pays for itself. When new parents come into baseball, they are quite shocked at what the school does not do for their child.

Our sports fees are $35 for the 1st sport and to not exceed $50 for a school year/athlete.

Other fees include $15-Hat


We have a school craft fair and so, the players are responsible to work the craft fair. We have only one booster club for all athletics and so, we are not allowed to raise any other monies. We are bare bones now and will lose a lot of teams/coaches if our referendum doesn't pass this spring. One suggestion = Sports fee $100/sport period. It will get ugly!

"There comes a time when you have to stop dreaming of the man you want to be and start being the man you have become." Bruce Springsteen

We have an annual golf tourney, dinner and auction that fund the baseball program 100%. Any kid that wants to play and makes the team has 0 financial responsibilities.

Look! Bullwinkle can clap and wink at the same time!

Our district requires a $70 athletic fee per sport. This goes toward travel expenses and umpires. Until this year, some money was available from district for equipment. Next to nothing this year. Team does two fund raisers, the 100 inning game and then sell restuarant coupons for $20, with the team keeping $10 of that. The coach asks that each kid raise $80 for the 100 inning game. (Most parents just write a check for that) All fund raiser money pays for balls, uniforms, hats, shirts, and field equipment.

It's so simple---Throw the ball, catch the ball.

Pay to Play has existed here for several years. It started out reasonably -- $30 for each sport. This year it is up to $120 per sport. And if we don't pass the levy that is on the ballot next week, it could go as high as $300-400 per sport! There are some districts around here that already have fees that high. The alternative was cutting out all high school sports entirely. Keep in mind that in addition, each sport has a booster club that usually costs around $75, plus fundraising obligtions after that. I'm really worried that we are pricing many kids out of playing high school sports!

I believe if High School students are charged a fee for playing a sport over and above what the athletic department funds then it should be on some sort of a scale dependent on the cost of the sport. for example the fee to be on the golf team should not be the same as that for the football team.

Between the "official" school fee and the extra "sport club" fee which is charged for most teams, sports at our HS run about $300 - $350 per year. Booster club is an extra $100 per person.
It's probably doubled over the past three years. Money has to come from somewhere...

D'oh!