The hidden costs of AHS sports

Deconstructing AHS sports fundraising

Staff Writer

High school sporting programs provide competitive athletic experiences to over eight million students across the United States. These programs rely on dedicated staff, well-maintained facilities, and equipment, all of which come at significant costs. At AHS, teams face similar problems; since AHS and FUSD face limited budgets and higher-priority requirements, coaches have found different ways to offset their teams’ expenditures.

While teams are able to take individual donations from the players, most AHS sports teams don’t collect mandatory participation fees from their players. Instead, they resort to fundraising through three different avenues: Snap! Raise, VerticalRaise, and school-based fundraisers.

Snap! Raise is a fundraising platform that offers custom videos, a secure platform, and a streamlined process to boost fundraising efforts. According to the website, students would submit twenty emails to the company, the company would contact the donors with the fundraising link, and then they would take 20% of the total at the end of the process as commission. Vertical Raise operates in a similar manner, providing social media campaigns, fundraising pages, and effective communication with the teams; it also takes a 20% cut.

In an interview, Gerardo Najera, the boys tennis coach, expressed great satisfaction with the platforms, saying, “It allows us to just focus on the season and not think about money because we reached a really good goal.”

The alternative to these programs are school events, which include sales, snack bars, sponsored events and more, offering teams a more consistent way of raising funds.

These programs, while effective, often don’t cover all team expenses, so teams fall back on the Athletic Club and the AHS Boosters Club.

The Athletic Club is a non-school-affiliated organization, profiting from ticket sales at games to help support teams. However, there are substantial costs involved, and the money raised frequently does not meet the eternity of teams’ needs. That is where the AHS Boosters Club, a group of private AHS parents dedicated to helping fund the sports teams, comes in, pitching in money from bingo nights, snack sales, and member donations.

“We had a scoreboard that was broken for the longest time, and it cost thousands of dollars, which we didn’t have. Luckily, the Booster Club was there to help, and with them pitching in, we were eventually able to buy it,” said Edward Villatoro, the varsity boys basketball coach.

The money fundraised is usually spent on two types of items. Pat Mapelli, the varsity girls soccer coach, said, “There are consumables which are things like balls, cones, and pennies, and then bigger picture items like bleachers or scoreboards or goals which are those [items] that last a much longer time. Consumables are replaced every year or every other [year] but the durable items can take longer.”

While American does not directly help with funding, it helps with maintaining sports facilities and providing protective equipment. Villatoro said, “[American] will help with safety equipment like the padding on the backboard or athletic tape to tape [player’s] ankles.” Omar Rahmani, the JV boys soccer team coach, was similarly assisted by this funding, saying that the school maintained the soccer field in the middle of the track, repainting the lines and doing general maintenance—excluding a few divots in the grass.

However, even with this help, several teams still lack funding, putting them in precarious positions.

The lack of strong fundraising and support has also stopped teams from purchasing crucial clothing or tournament entrance fees. “During the start of the season, we did not have enough money for AHS matching socks and pants for the players, so the players either had to bring it from home or buy it separately,” Rahmani said.

Mr. Mcloy, the head coach of the wrestling team, who faced similar issues, said, “Every year there is a shortage of funds for our goal of providing competition for all wrestlers on the team. To accommodate our team, we attend tournaments at a [lower] cost of $300-$450 per tournament. The coaches have covered the difference.”