Prep Zone

By Gwinnett Mom

October 15, 2006 10:28 AM | Link to this

I really understand the need for a club. We want to raise money and be able to have a say in how it is spent. Non-football parents may not want their tax dollars going toward football and I respect that, so we do what we need to do. I don’t agree with getting loans for future parents to pay, that’s not fair. Our school has about 80 players in the football program and about only a 20 families contributed to the booter club membership. What ticks me off, is not so much that one can’t afford to pay, but don’t help out in ANY capacity…most of the time physical help is needed, like helping to serve food— These boys start workouts afterschool in Jan. and hopefully will be playing into Nov or even Dec. and these parents do NOTHING!! A lot of the expense that the booster club picked up was because we realized that some of these kids don’t go home to a hot meal after practicing till 5:30pm every night. These same parents don’t come to meetings held ONCE a month to even find out where the money goes and what needs to be done for the next month, but THEY complain the loudest. The money raised by membership and from sponsors also pays for out of metro ATL games, summer out-of-town camp, tutors as needed, program books sold at the games, spirit wear, meals, banquet, senior gifts…So is the booster club needed, YES!!!

By Dre

October 15, 2006 10:47 AM | Link to this

Schools were winning without all this money going here and there before, they can win without it now.

By Shanon

October 15, 2006 12:06 PM | Link to this

Cracks me up.

A JumboTron?

Fake turf?

All I need is five working computers and a printer in my English classroom, and that would be fine.

By Gwinnettparent

October 15, 2006 12:12 PM | Link to this

The money is getting out control across the board in high school athletics, and it just isn’t football. These programs are being run like a business with the sporting experience for these young people being far down the list of priorities—-facilities and fund-raising being the top two.

I laugh at coaches who describe recreational leagues as “pay to play” when the financial demands of rec and even travel teams pale in comparison to high school costs? Pay to play? Rec sports is the deal of the century compared to high school.

By Supportive Parent

October 15, 2006 09:25 PM | Link to this

I think the articles were very informative. I am a board member of a booster club. I got involved because I wanted to know what the money was being used for. SO I GOT INVOLVED! Now I have the answers I needed. I know first hand. I agree with the earlier post. We have 15% of the parents doing 99% of the work. If you are not going to pay the dues at least help out but they won’t do that. Nobody complains at the college level when their boosters raise hundreds of thousands of $ for extra benefits for the players and the coaches. They applaud that. Its the same principle. Meals cost, coaches cost, video equipment cost, weights cost, gear cost…I can go on and on. Get involved so you will KNOW where the money is going. If we had a state school system that didn’t spend millions on beauracracy there would be money to go around for education and extra curricular. Other states survive fine without players paying fees because the school does it all or at least most of it.

By Typical Booster

October 16, 2006 09:56 AM | Link to this

I think your article was quite slanted against booster clubs. There were several points missing or not emphasized at all. Some schools get absolutely nothing from the State or County to pay for any sports programs. Gate reciepts do not cover the cost to put our kids in equipment that is required. Cobb, unlike Dekalb does not provide a stadiums for the teams to use, so the booster club is the only means to get one. The bigger the stadium, the more tickets can be sold, the bigger the gate receipts! As alluded to by serveral other entries, booster clubs are voluntary. No one at my son’s school forced me to join. I did so to support my children and make the experience the best it can be (win or lose). Also, while agree that it is a shame that the PTSA only gets a fraction of the income of the booster clubs, education does benefit from it. At my son’s school, the booster club built a field house and purchased equipment that all students that take the physical education classes get to use. My sons also play other sports outside of the official GA high school recognized sports and the costs there are just as great. Just ask parents of other sports what the costs per person are and you will find that the booster club dues are much less. Football is an easy target because in GA, high school football is big news, but take a look at tennis, hockey, soccer, ect and you might find that it is all relative.

By momma

October 16, 2006 10:32 AM | Link to this

I think that since the school board isn’t paying for the facilities that we need the parents are having to pay and that stinks, so don’t beat up the parents who have come together to make our children have the best that they need to suceed. If we had to do the same for education which we pratically are ( with Sylvan learning Center, etc.) then we to also bear making the payments instead of our failing school systems here in the South. Maybe we should pay attention to how they handle things in the Northern part of the world.

By Justafan

October 16, 2006 10:38 AM | Link to this

The DeKalb AD sounds just about like someone that is in an adminstrative position in that County…If he doesn’t have, didn’t think of it, then its not needed….Schools like Brookwood raise BIG BUCKS for the football program; but also they have a 6 figure Band Booster club; a huge booster club for the performing arts; top all of this with the highest SAT scores in the state…so what’s the problem???? It’s all about parent involvement…or in DeKalb Co case lack of, or no involvment. Check out the AJC book with the ratings of the public schools…The most telling sign of a school with problems is the number of members in the PTSA…the membership in City of Atl and DeKalb Co schools is minimal at best.No parent involvement, no success.

By HS SPORTS

October 16, 2006 11:44 AM | Link to this

Some people have different goals in life. Some people have different expectation in life. When a parent have a vision for their kids its at all cost, invest time or money and hopefully we’ll all save the children. By giving these kids the opportunity to have first class facilities and having quality life experiences I think it really gives them vision to excel. If some people want better football facilities keep up the good work. If some people want strong academics keep up the good work. If the people want both its put yourself in that position to have both its to each’s own. I did myself grow up in a system like dekalb county ,but it was in DADE COUNTY FLORIDA and it is pretty much equal from school to school with alot of success. I would have loved to have our own turf that we could have called our HOUSE that I helped to build onto a great tradition. We had no stadiums, and we had weak booster clubs and very little parent support. The one big thing is that we love what we do.It only takes a feeder system to build a program, and it takes good coaches to win state championships.With all of the bells and whistles it sure does add the joy of hosting in the state game if you place. So for all of this i’ll say whats good aint cheap and what’s cheap aint good IMPROVE YOUR FACILITES!!!!!!!!

By working parent too!

October 16, 2006 12:33 PM | Link to this

We work hard to have a good Booster Club at MLK Jr. High School. With only a handful of parent participation we’ve done well but we could do GREAT if more parents would get involved. Getting INVOLVED and staying commented is what will birth a GREAT organization. Get involved Lion Parents we need your support to make our Booster CLub the best it can be!

By KSShake

October 16, 2006 01:44 PM | Link to this

FINALLY!!! The folks that know me, and my blogs, you KNOW I’m gonna have a field day all week on this one. So excuse me and I aplogize before hand. Because I’ve been talking about this for a long time and I’ll give AJC credit for FINALLY opening up this Pandora’s box. People have been trying to refute what I’ve been blogging about for a while about. Unfortunately, this “Booster club fund raising, facilities and money haves and have not” topic of factor has is and does play a factor in long term and prosperous football programs.

First off, I’ll admit this thing is way more financially daunting than I even imagined. (To me the COST to have this things is a ripoff). Call me financially out-of-touch but, a darn fieldhouse with lockerooms that amount to giant storage cubbyholds from our pre school days and weights for a weightroom shouldn’t cost a much as it does. And what is ncessary for a stadium; some fencing, some cement, concrete, grass (it don’t have to be Sprintturf) and even that stuff shouldn’t cost SO much to put down for a football field. I swear this is the biggest racket going.

I will not dog Cobb, North Fulton, Cherokee, and Gwinnett touchdown clubs or parents for wanting the absolute best for their kids. That’s totally understandable. But, at least they have the financial capability to do it. (whether those pathetic excusemaking, nickle grubing, pennypinching three athletic administrators from Dekalb (Henderson, Lee, And Sebree). Right off the bat with Mr. Henderson’s response to your first question about shared stadiums and their athletic department hamstringing poor-mouth, cheapskate approach to running Dekalb’s athletic department made me sick. Their simply relying on Dekalb having superior athletes competing with inferior facilities and because Stephenson and Tucker have had “a degree” of suceess while being blessed with arguebly the best athletes per student body ratio. They look at those schools success (no thanks to them) as a reason to justify their cheap cost effective approach.

I’ll admit too much money IS being spent, but some aren’t using what they’re getting very well, some don’t have clue HOW to raise money, and then they have the gaul to dictate to the parents and booster clubs what and how much they can raise to further hamstring the kids. This inciteful article does a good job at exposing the cheapness and ineffectiveness of Dekalb and Atlanta’s systems’ and the extravagant, wasteful spending of others that want BUY a championship for their school, by spending and acruing monstrous debts to have the “best” of everything to lure new move-ins wheter it be from out of state or crosstown, and the wonderful “super-athlete” transfer that some have become so reliant on.

Props do go out to Norcross and Camden Co. for recognizing that this is what it is and “finding” a way to keep up as middle-class communities with committed parents and people in the community that care about the school and it’s kids having what it needs to compete with the “Big Bucks” schools.

Can Mr. Scott Jones come do a seminar for Dekalb so theeir schools can learn how to make money on their own as well. And by the way another point, all this money that can be raised to send these big, wonderful bands literally all over the world, but we can’t built nice little stadiums on campus. Bull$*#%! I don’t beleive it. It ain’t got to be like Brookwood’s but,you can’t tell Coach Gartrell, Coach Godfrey, Coach Ballard, ect, wouldn’t rather play their home games (playoff games especially) on their own campus. But then again hae you seen Tucker lately where’s the money going now. Don’t tell see what their doing to SWD, shoot that and more has benn long over due for about 15 years. A cheapskate gives a starving man a crumb and thinks he’s did him a favor!

By KSShake

October 16, 2006 03:02 PM | Link to this

I’m with ya Justafan, HS SPORTS, and working parent too. Thesepeople are the realist of the real. I don’t think this article is that slanted. I like to think some of the constant banter on this subject onn the blogs between me and others spurned this article, which could’ve have been aweek long expose’. I seriously don’t think that the gentlemen Charlie Henderson (Dekalb Athletic Director) has a clue. To me, his thinking is still in the 70’s or early 80’s. It’s like the high school athletic’s version of Communism. I don’t think he wants Dekalb athletics to compete or he can’t keep up with the times. But, like with anything concerning kids and schools. PARENT SUPPORT is biggestthing lacking. Because, the comunity support won’t come if the parents don’t care or don’t want the best. That’s the ONLY thing that allows cheapskate, nickle-n-dimers to stay in place and make excuses, skirt the issue, and shortchange the children of Dekalb. And then try to give impression that your cheapskate ways are in some way beneficial to Dekalb schools’ athletics. It’s no different than some slick talkin politician trying to sell you that your igloo in the north pole is better than a nice warm house with heat.

Listen to the voices of the people, i.e. HS SPORTS, Justafan, and working parent too. The people WANT better. (I know for a fact the peple at Stephenson AND ML King WANTED their own stadiums and wanted to become more self sufficient. But you folks at the main office didn’t want to lose the gate reciepts to your two biggest cash cows.

There was some lying and egsagerating in “The Perfect System” interview. NO One In Dekalb is paying $1,500, $1,000 or whatever to play football in Dekalb. that’s a straightup,BALDFACED LIE! The rest is gibberish and excuses for not allowing the schools to more self sufficient. And if thats a problem, close some of the schools and build fewer,but bigger and better to accomodate. I I refuse to beleive that Dekalb(with one of the largest earning per capita for minorities in the country can’t have 8 to 10 Large sized nice High schools with their own amenities, if thats the case the people doing the budget need to be fired. But until these parents get in the know and become a little more passionate about the athletics it’s going to continue. Because, minority parents have been more concerned with getting the schools academically up to par and comparable this hasn’t been as much of a priority,so people have gotten away with it. And after the great white flight from Dekalb, who cared anymore? PEACE!!!

By HornetWatcher06

October 16, 2006 06:12 PM | Link to this

I take a different approach to this article than taken by some of your bloggers. Those that can will. But for what reason. Alot of parents are involved so that their kid can get more playing time. Gone are the days of putting your best athletes on the field. If mom and pop can contribute large sums of money well junior gets to play more.Show me an executive board that does not have a kid playing and I will show you a well run program but for the most part all of the booster members that work on or in these clubs do so for junior to get more PT. The difference between the Dekalb band boosters raising money to send their kids around the world and these atheletic boosters is ALL of the band students get to perform and attend the trip whereas not all of the atheletes get to hit the field. Money garners influence.Influence garners privilege. There is no way around it. Yeah facilities are being built and other students are using them but at public schools should not ALL students have access to use them if they attend the school. Beside that’s why they were built. Isn’t it.

By lithonia parent

October 18, 2006 11:49 AM | Link to this

How do you get more parents involved in Booster club activities?