The price before performance
Students pour their own money into their athletics
Girl’s Soccer practices kick into full swing, and student’s spend hundreds of dollars to play.
Along with the shift from February to March, spring sports kick into action. Many of these sports allow for some relief from the extremely strenuous end to the school year. They are also a great way to enjoy the transformation of weather from dreadful to beautiful. But these sports tend to come with a literal price tag.
Student athletes pay hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars to pay for equipment used in their sports. The rough equipment expenses for the average Spring Sports participant is around $250.
FHC Athletic Director, Scott Harris, cites Baseball as a prime example of what athletes pay to play their sports. “They all have their own gloves for a couple hundred dollars. Bats can be several hundreds of dollars. They also have their own cleats for around 100 dollars.”
These are just expenses for equipment, but most spring athletes have added costs with their club affiliations. These costs include tournament fees, transportation costs, and the price of apparel and jerseys. Junior Soccer Player, Molly Krispin, spoke about the extremity of club sport costs.
“For high school it’s not that much,” Krispin said. “But I’m on a traveling team and I have league fees of up to a thousand dollars for just one season. We also add traveling fees which is a hotel for two nights every weekend, plus all the food and gas money for that weekend.”
Senior golfer, Tony Parato, expressed his content with the extreme prices of golf.
“My clubs are probably 700 bucks. You also need golf clothes and khakis, a hat, gloves, tees, and golf balls, which can get pretty expensive. After a week of playing golf that is paid for by the school however, you make the money back in greens fees.”
According to Harris, the school assists heavily with the burden on students. “We provide baseballs, soccer balls, and lacrosse balls,” Harris said. “[Each sport] runs about the same (750 to 1000 for equipment).”
Event with all of these expenses, almost all athletes choose to continue pushing for excellence in their sports. In the end, the achievement they earn outweighs any monetary trials they transcend to get there.
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