Two soccer teams — one boys, one girls — will be cut at both Lakota East and West, while the boys basketball program at each school will field one less team this winter.
“It’s very unfortunate to take opportunities away from kids,” East athletic director Rich Bryant said, “and it’s not a direction that we wanted to go in.
‘‘But it’s a direction we’re forced to go in due to the fact that one, it’s obviously financial, and two, we don’t have the people to cover in those departments with the cuts we’ve made in the athletic department.”
The savings generated from cutting the soccer and basketball teams are $13,214 and $11,722, respectively.
Those figures include supplemental contracts for coaches, paying officials, equipment and busing.
“I hope it does get reinstated to give opportunities for kids to develop and possibly make it to the next level,” said West girls soccer coach Tara Schafer-Kalkhoff, who sees her program go from three teams to two. “We won’t know the impact on the program until we get into the season and see what kind of numbers and the talent of the players that we are going to have to let go.”
It had already been approved at previous board meetings to decrease the athletic budget by five percent ($15,350) and increase athletic fees — $300 for high school, $200 for junior high — with no family cap ($200,000).
“It’s significant,” East boys basketball coach Wally Vickers said.
“It’s going to change how we do things tremendously in terms of player evaluation. What the sophomore team gave you was a chance to develop kids, and we’re going to lose that.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 755-5113 or smatthews@coxohio.com.
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