[Student Reporters] The Cost of Competition

Paul Lee <12th, James Paylor High School>

Schools are proud to have successful athletics programs, from football to tennis to soccer. However, with the recent times of economic uncertainty, more sports programs are finding their budgets becoming restricted and smaller.

For tennis, the field house is in a rather less-than-excellent condition, with old benches and broken water faucets. Furthermore, the department is not able to purchase the best equipment possible to help our improvement in the sport, from the quality of the tennis balls to the availability of water and ice.

“While we still work hard,” tennis player Tom Hopkins stated, “it would still be nice if we had better facilities.” “I really hope our program gets some more money in the budget so that we can improve our facilities and purchase higher quality stuff so that we can have more productive practices.”
Max Pickens, captain of the Taylor Tennis Team, expressed his sentiments, “The times are tough. We need to do it with what we can buy, even with the limited resources.”

The recession America has been experiencing has had much more far-reaching effects than just how many retail stores sell their merchandise or how much stock prices change. The effects of the economic uncertainty of today have effects reaching down to high school athletic programs.