To the Editor,

At the most recent School Committee meeting, Mr. Sweeney from B&E Consulting presented recommendations to the committee. Mr. Sweeney recommended eliminating middle school sports comparing them to community sports such as “AYSO”. It is not the same thing; in fact, as a middle school girls’ soccer coach, I spend most of my season undoing a lot of what I call “AYSO mentality”. 

AYSO is valuable in its own right, but it does not serve the same function as Middle School Soccer. The three concepts AYSO focuses on is sport fundamentals, fun, and everyone plays. Middle School sports go beyond that, preparing them mentally and physically for high school level playing.

AYSO is meant to teach the basics; however, competitively for middle school and beyond, we go further. While I do let every team member play on my team, I do not play kids equally. My team ranges from kids who never played soccer before, to those who are skilled enough for varsity high school. AYSO also utilizes smaller fields, goals and equipment; while we use standard size of fields and go by school rules.

Because I have students and parents who are involved in AYSO, parents sometimes complain about their child’s playing time. I have to explain to both of them that playing time is up to my discretion and that our main focus is to win and though I do not agree with ‘win at all costs’ either, I put my best players out on the field first and longer. 

Unlike AYSO, which is pay to play and fundraises, we do not ‘pay to play’, which is recommended by B&E. I’m adamantly against ‘pay to play’ because money will be an issue for some students that are playing now and wouldn’t afford to continue if they had to pay. I would hate to have talented students walk away because of financial issues.  While I do fundraise for my team, unlike AYSO, we have limits on fundraising. I have to get permission from the principal and run it through the A.D., we need to make sure that our fundraiser does not conflict with another group in the school, and doesn’t violate any contractual agreements. For example, we tried doing a bake sale at the school cafeteria, but can’t because of the contract with the food service company.

It will be very difficult to run a team solely on fundraising; it would be a full time job for coaches to fundraise to keep a team running.  Also, fundraisers yield very inconsistent income. B&E also suggested booster clubs and company sponsored teams, however, which would require new rules being implemented and making sure we are in compliance with RIIL and RIPCOA rules. Also, during this economic time, it may be a difficult task finding a company that can provide for a team. 

Sports are to help students, and speaking from experience, if it weren’t for middle school sports, many kids would be in trouble. I have had kids with behavioral issues that would feel they have no reason to come to school without sports; they’d stay back until 16 and drop out. Some would be involved in drugs and other vices. My suggestions would be scaling back coaches’ stipends a bit, to do advertising strictly for sports and maybe to mandate that every team, whether middle or high school, fundraise and any funds not used go to the athletic department. We should also explore grant opportunities that may be currently untapped. There are better ways to do this! Cutting middle school sports would negatively impact approximately a couple hundred kids. Could you live with that?

Sincerely,
June Coan
34 Sunset Ave.
Martin Middle School Girls Soccer Coach