Monday, May 14, 2012

Wrestling: NJSIAA cutbacks should start in-house

The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association claims it's hemorrhaging money, the result of lower ticket prices and expensive tournament hosting fees for the state wrestling championships at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.

Now, the association is bidding out the wrestling tournament for 2013 and beyond, along with creating more football championships. Director Steve Timko has officially pressed the panic button and says he's now doing things in the best financial interest of the NJSIAA.

What about doing the best for high school sports? If finances are killing the NJSIAA, then a good starting point on how to curb expenditures is cutting back on salaries for its own employees. For too long, this regime has padded its own salaries, while collecting publicly-funded pensions on top of the cake.

Remember Timko's predecessor, Boyd Sands? He resigned from the NJSIAA in January 2006 with a tidy little retirement package of $549,000. Maybe Sands would like to make a charitable contribution to his former employer? Don't hold your breath.

Memo to Timko and the NJSIAA: Don't start making knee-jerk decisions that hurt athletics across the board.

Why do we need additional state titles in football? Twenty weren't enough, so now we need 24? Forget about scaling back and playing to one state champion in the four (now five) Groups like they do in other sports. That ain't happening now.

Starting this fall, we go from 128 schools to 160 that qualify for the sectional football tournaments. You don't have to be a math major to figure 32 more schools paying entrance fees adds up to more money for the NJSIAA.

Timko recently told the Philadelphia Inquirer that "We've cut to the bare bones." Really? Is the NJSIAA taking pay cuts? Are they taking unpaid furloughs like my brethren in the newspaper business? Timko claims they have frozen salaries, along with not replacing the retired Bob Baly's position. It's not enough to freeze already overblown salaries.

The NJSIAA even contradicts itself when blaming things on the reduced ticket prices that started in 2010. The association reportedly lost nearly $1 million between 2006 and '07 (thanks largely to Sands' retirement windfall), yet business administrator Gary Zarrilli gave this response: "It all comes down to ticket prices," to the Inquirer as to why the association was losing money.

How is this so, when this group was operating in the red prior to 2010?

Don't get me wrong. I like Timko and feel he's done a lot of positive things for athletics since Sands shuffled off in 2006. Timko has always been very approachable and genuinely cares about the concerns of coaches, athletes, media and fans.

But the NJSIAA has to start getting real and cutting back where it needs to. Otherwise, it may not be around much longer.

But don't make the ultimate mistake of destroying high school sports on the way out the door.

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