Centennial High School Boise

Meridian athletics hit by proposed budget cuts

The Meridian School District is aiming to reduce its spending by $21.76 million in the next school year, and if the budget that is currently proposed goes through, athletic teams across the district would be effected.

The plan would cut $800,000 from athletics budgets at the district’s five high schools, eliminating freshman teams in every sport except football, volleyball and cheerleading. It also cuts $650,000 from seven middle schools, reducing the number of seventh and eighth grade teams.

“You’re cutting more kids out of extra-curricular activities,” Eagle High football coach Paul Peterson said. “I’m just concerned, what are these kids going to be doing after 3 in the afternoon?”

District spokesman Eric Exline said, during a public hearing Tuesday night at Mountain View High, the proposal would cut more than 320 coaching stipends across the district.

Exline added that the district will partner with the YMCA to offer more intramural sports at the middle school level.

“We’re trying to keep our participation numbers up,” Exline said.

In addition to the cuts, the district will institute a pay-to-play policy at both the middle and high school levels, charging $100 per student-athlete, per sport. Students who play multiple sports will be charged for a maximum of two sports per school year.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of kids playing (multiple) sports,” Centennial High girls basketball coach Emery Roy said. “I don’t know if parents are going to make them play this sport or that sport.”

Peterson said he has already started brainstorming fund-raising activities to ensure that kids who want to play football still can, regardless of financial situation.

“I don’t ever want money to be a factor of whether they play or not,” he said.

But Peterson added that his team would still be hurt by the reduction of football at the middle schools from two teams to one.

“It’s awful hard for 13- or 14-year-old athletes to really know ultimately how things are going to look three or four years down the road,” he said. “You need to keep more and more kids at the younger level participating because you never know what their strengths or passions may be.”

Roy added that by cutting teams at the middle school level, Meridian high school teams — which compete in the 5A Southern Idaho Conference — might start falling behind schools from Boise, which compete in the same conference.

Centennial High hoops pair makes college commitments | Voices ...

Centennial High guard Patrick Manning and post Faruk Huskic helped lead the Patriots to a runner-up finish at the 5A state boys basketball tournament earlier this year, earning spots on the 5A All-Idaho Team.

Manning will play for Wanatchee Valley Community College, while Huskic has committed to Pacific University (Ore.).

Rocky Mountain hoops player Ryan Skurdal also signed with Wenatchee Valley.

In girls basketball, Vallivue senior Shanee McBride signed her letter of intent to play for North Idaho Junior College.

In football, Mountain Home's Tyler Wright, a tight end and defensive end, received a scholarship to play for Idaho State.

With these five signings, the list now includes 132 Treasure Valley athletes (2011 graduates unless otherwise noted) who have either signed a letter of intent or have verbally committed to compete for a college or university. The information was provided to the Statesman by high school coaches and administrators or by club team officials. College commitments and signings can be sent to rroberts@idahostatesman.com.

Be sure to check out our Varsity Extra pages on Facebook and Twitter (IDS_VarsityX) to keep up with the latest high school sports news.

Baseball

Chris Berry, Bishop Kelly, University of Evansville

It's nice that you can list 130 or so academic based college signings?

So? Why ism't there a story about where the REST of them are headed in general?

What is the point at this point? we're told how important college is supposed to be...

WHERE IS THE LIST?

It becomes slightly hollow after a while.

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Centennial High guard Patrick Manning and post Faruk Huskic helped lead the Patriots to a runner-up finish at the 5A state boys basketball tournament earlier this year, earning spots on the 5A All-Idaho Team.

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