Dawg,
So far we've paid a $75 participation fee, a $22 sock fee, a $20 practice tshirt fee, are expected to provide a team meal for 20 (which will likely cost in excess of $100), and need to pony up another $5 for an unallocated meal.
I figure HS soccer for my daughter to cost me about $220 this Spring in direct costs.
Plus we're expected to do the obligatory concessions at a football game and a basketball game...join the Booster club, etc.
You ask if everyone could afford to play a decent rec level soccer if school soccer didn't exist. My take is......it would be a whole lot LESS expensive to do so. I wonder how families who are stuggling deal with the expense of HS soccer?
There are a million benefits to my daughter and her mates who play HS soccer. Thats not the point. The two relevant points are: first, in a time of extremely limited funding does it make sense to divert finite resources to athletics? And two, do schools hurt themselves in the long run by allowing the focus of their mission (educating our children) to be expanded into areas only peripherally relevant to the mission?
Teaching fitness and offering PE and nutrition is directly relevant, IMO. Having a football team or a basketball team or a soccer team....I don't see it.
