OT - local HS asks rec league to change schedule
 

Just thought I'd mention this since it's the off season. Our local kids rec league goes from 3rd grade thru HS. This past season, our rec league had 20 HS boys teams and 6 HS girls teams, which means we had about 260 HS kids in our program out of a total of around 1000 kids in the program. We play all our HS games on Friday nights (at middle school gyms). The AD at the HS contacted our Board president and wanted to know if we could move our HS games to a different night or possibly during the day on Saturdays. Apparently, he thinks that if we did this, a lot of our kids would then attend the regular HS home games that are played on Friday nights which would help their effort to boost attendance. We're having a meeting with him, his HS coaches and the district facilities manager in a few weeks.

We took a survey of all our HS players and their parents and less than 10 said they "might" attend more regular HS games if that was the case. I don't think that's the number the HS was looking for. It would cause some problems for us to "switch" because the MS gyms are not as readily available on other nights plus some of our HS players also ref little kids games for us on Saturdays, so if their games were also on that day, it would not work out very well. We don't want to move the "little kids" to night games so the only option would be to move the MS kids to night games. We used to do that but got a lot of push back from MS parents and our registration numbers went down.

Any thoughts you might have would be greatly appreciated.

Do you have a HS off night during the week? Around here Monday and Thursday is mostly girls, Tuesday and Friday is mostly boys.

I do not understand why the middle schools or there is not another facility. Almost every middle school has a gym of some kind or every school has a gym. In many cases the schools have multiple gyms. Again this would be foreign to me because unless you are in such a small area that would not allow the use of multiple gyms or schools. Unless you have a gym that is going to be committed to the league I think you have to go with their options. In my experience most non-school leagues with kids play on weekends or play at some facility that does not conflict with other school events. The league just might have to adjust or find a place where they can schedule games whatever times they want to.

Peace

Mark, do what works for your league, not what a local AD thinks might give him some vague benefit.

Just for some background - our area does not have MS leagues. All the MS kids who go to public school and want to play basketball either play in our rec league or in a local "competitive" program, which is relatively expensive. The Catholic school in town, I think, sends their kids to play in a metro CYO program but we do get some of them, too. We have two middle schools in our town and each has two gyms. We also use four elementary schools with a total of 7 gyms. Our Friday night schedule uses each gym for four games and our Saturday schedule uses each gym from 8:15 until 4:00. We also play some "interlock" games with rec leagues from two adjacent towns.

That "local AD" has a lot of pull with the school district facilities manager and we rent all our gyms from the school district. We have to "make nice".

That is the problem. If the schools do not have athletic programs than you will be at the mercy of the schools or the facilities that could help with the basketball program you are involved in. This is totally foreign to me as I said earlier is you either played with your school or at the local YMCA in a "house league" of sorts. Not sure how you get around this if the HS wants to play their games on the same nights and there is not more than one gym at the school to play in. You might just have to play at night and hope for the best.

Peace

It seems your circumstances are unique enough that I don't have anything else to offer. If you have to acquiesce to keep your gyms, so be it. I would go to him with the numbers you gave, and ask him if he really wants to schedule a few kids out of basketball in order to gain 8 or 9 paying spectators.

Or....?

We don't get gym space.

Actually most, if not all, of those students probably have ASB (Associated Student Body) cards which they purchase the first day of school and which let them in to all HS athletic events at no charge. I really don't see what the AD is trying to achieve here.

I guess I'll find out at our meeting with him.

Mark, it seems like you are acting as if the AD or the school does not have a right to use their facility for school events. I know you might love your league, but that is their right to use their facility for their programs.

Peace

I think you're completely misreading Mark here.

The rec league rents gym space from middle schools.
The high school AD has asked the league to choose different dates so more students might attend varsity games.
The high school AD has political pull with the middle schools that could adversely affect the rec league if they choose not to comply with the high school AD's request.

This has nothing to do with ms facility availability; it's all about the HS AD wanting fewer entertainment alternatives to his varsity games on Friday night.

Wow - you hit the coach, er, I mean the nail, right on the head. One thing we have going for us is that some of the people on the District School Board (elected by the voters) have kids in our program or in an adjacent city program (the school district covers both cities). They are big supporters of our leagues, since we provide the main basketball program for MS and elementary students and they recognize the importance of having sports programs for kids.

OK, unless the league owns the facility, they are at the mercy of the school. No different than the local official's associations in my area that hold meetings and classes at the local HS schools and we are at the mercy of those schools and their needs or we find another school that can accommodate what we want. I am not saying he cannot be disappointed, but if the AD wants to hold games on other nights, that is their right to do just that. And if that eliminates kids to participate, then that is just what you will have to deal with. Just saying that the AD does not have to care or should care what a local league does unless he/she values that league so much that he gives them what they want. But that is not always the case and not much different than what our associations have had to deal with when we meet at schools.

Peace