Here comes the ax

J's World, by Jeremiah Bartz

Prep activities are now in immediate danger.

The Mat-Su School Board is now standing potentially as a large guillotine. Insert the current budget and after the board, or large medieval device, makes the cut, heads will be rolling.

The board announced this week the budget deficit, which is rising faster than my blood pressure after two pots of coffee, has forced the organization to make serious cuts. Many of these cuts directly affect athletics.

Right now the district's budget stands at 136 million dollars, with just 1.3 million representing extra-curricular activities. For those who aren't quick with the ole' math, activities represent merely one percent of the entire budget.

The four activities director positions at the local schools could vanish, elementary and middle school sports may be gone and funding for transportation for activities could be squashed.

According to Houston activities director Jamie Smith, the district may only save $200,000 to $300,000 dollars by eliminating transportation funding. That is like a fat man ordering a extra large pizza with 100 different types of sausage and taking one piece of pepperoni off because he is worried about cholesterol.

In the meantime, while the transportation funding is cut, the fat man dies of a heart attack and student-athletes will have to find an alternative to hitch hiking.

With the elimination of elementary, middle school and freshman activities, the local youth will be drastically running out of opportunities to get involved in activities. Studies show that youth involved in extra-curricular are far less likely to end up in trouble. That means the average 15-year-old that can no longer play on his freshman football team, may find another way to occupy his time.

Picture this, a kid, lets call him Dave, has an extra two or three hours of free time per afternoon. Both of Dave's parents work, and his older brother is in college on an athletic scholarship, because he used his opportunity created by prep activities to better himself. Dave is is unsupervised and starts hanging with the wrong crowd. Finally Dave starts smoking the dope. A future athlete is now a future couch potato with his only interests being eating Doritos, watching Jerry Springer re-runs and smoking a big fat doobie.

Dave flunks out of high school, fails to get a diploma and now earns the few dollars he has by selling carnations along the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

If C-teams are just the first to fall and high school activities are eliminated completely, the Valley could be full of Daves. Children could be heading toward the jail, rather than the end zone.

And most importantly, if high school sports do vanish, that effects me! Not only is Dave smoking the dope, I am out of a job.

The Frontiersman would fill the holes created by the lack of prep sports, with crime stories involving our misguided youth.

This is all because of a few cuts, that make no sense at all. It is like cutting a finger off a patient with prostate cancer or covering your mouth when you break wind -- it just plain doesn't make any sense.

High school is supposed to be four years of opportunity for each student. Whether or not the student takes advantage of the opportunity is their choice, but the district should not take away the opportunity for a student to participate in an activity, possibly excel and help build a future for themselves.

Jeremiah Bartz is the sports editor for the Frontiersman. Unlike Casey Ressler, he is not vacationing in Hawaii.