SACCO: An idea to be thrown out

Knocking them around is what ideas are for. Toying with a student-athlete’s emotions? Yeah, not so much. If the mere thought of paying money for your son or daughter to play the sport or sports they love has you shaking your head and wondering what the future holds for high school athletes, well, join the club.

If you’re a Staunton student-athlete hoping that draining a trey can score you a scholarship to college, you might want to take another look at the scoreboard.

Superintendant Steven Nichols says pay-to-play is only one of a dozen ideas that have been thrown out there to help close a $2.6 million budget gap.

The only place that idea should be is in the trash.

It’s wrong.

“It’s not cut in stone,” he said.

This shouldn’t even be sketched in pencil.

Sure, it might help meet a budget shortfall, but at what price? The price of sending a few extra kids to college? The price of having a few extra kids running around after school so we can all listen to the hoity-toity, please-don’t-touch-my-Shakespeare-theater Staunton blue bloods hem and haw about high school kids galavanting downtown at all hours? (OK, you’re not all blue bloods, but then again, not all high school kids are the gang-banging miscreants you make them out to be. You put your broad brush down and I’ll stop painting with mine. Until then, even Stevens.)

If there’s one thing Staunton can ill afford, it’s charging athletes to play sports. That idea should be boxed out and never allowed to leave the boardroom where it’s been discussed.

So don’t let those Stauntonites who see dollar signs and book deals off a 41-year-old murder case fool you. We know it’s not all cake eaters and pinky-up tea drinkers in the Queen City. Some of us know how it really works over there. Some of us are not blind to the economic situation many a Leeman and Lee Lady come from. We’ve been regaled with stories for years about how poverty-addled moms and dads keep their little boys in check by using “I’m going to tell Coach Hatcher” as a threat.

No worry cuts deeper in Staunton than having legendary boys basketball coach Paul Hatcher thinking you can’t cut it in the classroom or off the court. No worry to someone who’s trying to figure out how to feed a family cuts deeper than having to spend extra money on what could be the kids’ only way out.

Are mom and pop going to have to hang, say, a $50 basketball charge over their sons or daughters? Is David Tibbs going to see his consistently powerful football program thrown under a bus because asking parents to dole out $150 for their kids to play football is an end they just can’t meet? Let us not forget that in 13 years that football program has sent 24 players to college on scholarships. We can only guess that Hatcher’s basketball program ranks right up there. We can also only imagine how many would not have gone to college if not for sports and how many more would not have sports if they had to pay to play.

People are losing their jobs everywhere. The Staunton school system, no doubt, will have to let a few people go to make ends meet. Like it or not, those are the prospects this area and the whole country face. And while it’s not easy to say in our economic climate, nothing should ever be done to sacrifice the future.

Trim away, if need be. The boys basketball team doesn’t need to travel to Lynchburg during the regular season to play Liberty. Don’t let the football team travel for a scrimmage. Pare back the JV programs, send them out to fewer games and shorten their schedules. Charge more for games. Make popcorn 2 bucks instead of $1.50.

But don’t make the kids pay. When it comes to the privilege of taking the field for your school, it should be about the X’s and O’s and the Jimmys and Joes.

Never about the Benjamins.