Middle Schools' Teams Get Private Help for District Woes

The Board of Education saved about $100,000 by cutting middle school sports out of its budget in the spring. But concerned parents and Athletic Director Marc Taglieri found a way to privately back four of six teams at Orange Avenue and Hillside Avenue schools.

"They'll operate independently from the school district but with the full cooperation of myself and the athletic department," Taglieri said.

He added that the teams will use the same fields, facilities and uniforms as last year. But the costs associated with the program — such as paying insurance premiums and for referees — also remain the same, so the newly private programs shift the burden of funding to parents and outside agencies.

Thr Cranford Police Athletic League incorporated the middle school wrestling program, for example, and started charging an $80 fee to pay for insurance, uniforms and other expenses, according to Cranford PAL director Chris Polito.

The middle schools' basketball teams, meanwhile, joined the Amateur Athletic Union, a youth sports sanctioning organization. Each team will have the choice of whether to hire a coach, Rich Wischusen said, a Cranford resident who coordinated efforts to create the program. Without a coach, the cost will be $110-115 per child. With the coach, it could cost each participant up to $125.

Wischusen said he first learned about the middle school sports cuts in the spring during budget discussions and wanted to see the teams re-formed. Superintendent Gayle Carrick then invited Wischusen to a series of meetings with school officials.

"The school basically agreed to do everything they could to assist us but we would have to finance it ourselves," he added. "I was convinced that if the sport died it would not be resurrected."

When middle school field hockey coach Jessica Calamari learned that her team would also be cut, she e-mailed parents of her former field hockey players to gauge whether or not there was interest in resurrecting it. She has recruited 19 players so far, she said, and set up the team using the Westfield YMCA as the umbrella organization.

There are a lack of recreational field hockey programs in the area, she said – which means her players don't have much alternative to the middle school teams. Her team also acted as an important feeder-program to the high school. In addition, she wanted to help resurrect the team for the skill set it provides students.

"I think the concept of working with other girls towards a goal and pushing yourself….you don't get that anywhere besides sports," said Calamari, herself a former middle school field hockey player, and a history teacher at Cranford High School. She added that sports also teach the art of losing gracefully; an underrated skill.  "If it doesn't work out it's still okay. Particularly in middle school years, where everything is really hard. Field hockey is what helped me and I think other girls can benefit from it." 

The baseball and softball teams will also be continued under an independent, non-profit organization called the Cranford Youth Sports Club. The trustees of this club, Keith Hoffman and Scott Wetherell, said they decided to pick up the two sports in the spring when budget cut were announced.

"We looked around and we realized that if some other non-profit organization didn't step up there might be a real problem," Hoffman said.

He added that there will be a fee for registration in order to pay for umpires, coaches and related equipment. Initial projections place the cost at around $175-250 per student, he said. It was easy enough for Cranford Youth Sports Club to pick up, he said, because "we had some of the major steps covered."

For example, the club already had an insurance policy for sports players, he said, and since many children attending CYSC also attended the Cranford School District, Hoffman and Wetherell maintained a good relationship with school officials.
The two created the CYSC initially to train parents to be coaches and to give children the opportunity to train during the winter.

"We're both softball coaches, we ran a fall league together last year, both of our girls are pitchers who train together so we kicked around the idea of starting this nonprofit last year while our girls were attending a pitching class," he said.

But the switch from a free program to a paid one does not sit well with Kathy Gordon. She is the parent of a 12-year-old softball player, Samantha, who has played on the town recreation team since first grade. She just started seventh grade at Hillside Avenue School, Gordon said – and was looking forward to playing softball on the school team. 
Gordon said she thinks the price of the newly privatized program is too high for one season of softball.

"I think that takes it away from most of the people who would've joined it because when you join for the school it's free."
She added that instead of joining the revamped team, Samantha will join the town recreation program again, which only costs $100 to play a season.

For Some Teams, a Hazy Future

But while these sports have been saved Taglieri said he's not sure what will happen to soccer and track.
In addition to wrestling, Taglieri said he asked Polito if Cranford PAL could pick up the track program. Because of a lack of manpower, however, PAL was unable to do so, Polito said.

"We're unable to find volunteer coaches," Polito said. Practice hours for these sports are 3-5 p.m., a notoriously difficult period in which to dredge up volunteers, as most adults are still at work during this time. 
Due to the 10-percent cut in officers at the Cranford Police Department this year, finding officers able to lend a hand is also more difficult, he said. "If it works out that we have the volunteers and we can help out we will; but if we can't we can't."

MacKenzie Keim, a soccer player and an eighth grader at Orange Avenue School, was also disappointed when she learned that the middle school soccer team would be cut. So far, no one has stepped up to recover that program.

"I was just really sad I wasn't going to be able to play again," she said, adding that she played on the team last year. For Keim, the thing she'll miss the most is playing with school friends, and the friendly rivalry that exists between Orange Avenue and Hillside Avenue School teams.

"I have a lot of friends in Hillside too, so it was really fun to play against them," she said.

Keim will be playing with the Cranford Soccer Club traveling team this year. Her father is P.J. Keim, the vice president of traveling team affairs. To alleviate disappointment on the part of students, he said the Cranford Soccer Club has also arranged two games so far that pin one middle school against each other – casual scrimmage matches between Hillside and Orange. A boys' match took place last week, and one for girls soccer players will take place Oct. 12.

P.J. said that the quality of traveling teams is generally greater than that of the middle school teams; but students miss them anyway.

"They (the students) take pride wearing school colors and miss that camaraderie," he said.

And now, thanks to parents and school officials,  they won't have to.