“When the school day was over (the day after the election), the 3:23 bell rang, and the kids got out of that school so quickly,” Anderson said. “There was a pall. It was so sad.
“There was no cheerleading practice. No balls bounding in the gym. No play practice. Just nothing.”
Since, Anderson has become one of the area’s biggest supporters of the importance of athletics to high schools and a strong opponent of compromising extracurricular activities because of levy defeats. The topic has come up again this week after the Miamisburg school system said it would cut all extracurricular activities if voters do not pass a 7.33-mill levy Tuesday, May 4.
If that happens, Anderson said, it will have a lasting effect on the school system even if the activities are later reinstated.
And Anderson is in a unique position to know. He spent 21 years as Xenia’s baseball coach and 19 seasons as boys basketball coach (his son, Kent, is the current Xenia boys basketball coach). He was a Xenia teacher for 33 years, and he had to help rebuild the athletic department following the reinstatement of activities in the fall of 1991.
“(The Xenia principal) and I sat down and made a list of 20-some reasons never to do what we did in Xenia,” Anderson said. “I drove around the state to speak to districts that were thinking about doing the same thing. All I had to do was tell them what happened to our kids.”
It has happened elsewhere. South-Western City Schools, a district with four high schools near Columbus, became the latest in the state to cut extracurricular activities when an August 2009 levy failed.
The Ohio High School Athletic Association also has expressed concern about the growing cost of pay-to-participate fees and threats of lost sports. In OHSAA Commissioner Dan Ross’ end-of-the-year memo to schools last June, pay to participate was the first issue mentioned, and Ross noted that the association is “tremendously concerned.” Three years ago, the state produced a bulletin entitled “School Sports are Vital to Ohio’s Youth.”
Some are finding unique ways to battle fees. The Ohio Association of Cheerleading Coaches, for instance, has established three scholarships for cheerleaders 11 or older that can be used to handle pay-to-participate fees. In Hawaii, a family-owned grocery store sought donations to help the state’s high school students continue extracurricular participation.
Everyone, it seems, is trying to avoid what Anderson and Xenia underwent 19 years ago.
“It hurt us for at least 10 years,” Anderson said, noting the numerous transfers at the high school and middle school levels. “In some ways I don’t think it’s been the same since.”
Contact this reporter
at (937) 225-7389 or
knagel@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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