At the Aug. 11 school committee meeting, varsity boys basketball coach Aaron Thomas made a proposal to the school committee to reinstate freshman sports for the upcoming school year.

All freshman sports - including football, boys and girls basketball - were eliminated during this year’s budget process.

“We would like you to reinstate the freshman sports. Coaches, parents and players will fundraise half of the expenses and the Booster’s Club will match the other half along with other donations, with no cost to the district,” said Thomas.

Vice Chairperson April Brunelle made a motion to only reinstate freshman football by using the breakage of paying a full-time athletic director and the current pay of the interim director. That savings will total between $22,0000 and $24,000 annually.   

The possibility of donations and fundraising will be examined further as a means of possibly reinstating additional freshman sports.

Committee member Douglas Roth was not comfortable reinstating the football team without doing the same for both girls and boys basketball.

“I don’t want to break them up. We have the money now, so let’s go ahead and reinstate all three. They have the funding in place now, we’re on the right track. Let’s do this,” he said.

Brunelle said she proposed starting with the football team because they’ve been practicing all summer.
“The basketball teams haven’t begun to practice yet. After the audit is complete, I want to look into the status of the athletic budget. I expect we’ll have the money to fund the basketball teams, I just want to hold off and see where we are after all this is done,” Brunelle said.  

“The school committee and the Booster’s Club share the same focus and that’s the students. Playing sports is such a rewarding thing. It helps with life skills and helps them prepare for the future. This is the dream of so many kids. So please restore the freshman sports,” Booster’s Club President Anne Lipsitz said.

School committee member Lynda Avanzato said she had been contacted by numerous parents who said their kids were under the impression that they were definitely going to play freshman football. But committee member Kimberly Page disagreed, saying her son and the other players knew they weren’t sure if they’d be playing come the start of school.

Some of the committee members voted to re-instate football only because the students were practicing double sessions and practicing their “hearts” out.

Motions made to reinstate freshman basketball, including one motion to reinstate the sports under the self-funded model, failed.

“I’m glad to see that went back in. Out of the three sports, football has the most kids and they’ve been working hard. It’s a tough timetable when this all came about. I just want to be known as hopefully the guy who came to them with a solution. I understand their concerns with that stuff and they’re going through this audit right now and that’s a difficult process. I just hope we can react very swiftly to basketball because it starts Dec. 1,” Thomas said.

Thomas is hoping he’ll be able to e-mail parents and say they’ll freshman basketball is definitely back. But for now, he said it’s just a waiting game until the audit is complete.  

“I think they have some questions about the way it’s funded. I think the audit will take care of that issue. I’m sure they audited all the different accounts, everyone’s questioning where the money is coming from,” Thomas said.

With reports from Eric Rueb, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it