Lehi Sports
Adding sports creates challenges beyond participant costs
Beky Beaton | Lehi Free Press
When new sports are added to the offerings at individual institutions, there’s more adjustments that need to be made beyond just covering the costs.
Two of the most daunting aspects involve sharing school facilities and providing adequate coverage by certified athletic trainers.
The use of facilities is especially challenging at Lehi High School, where an already-limited campus was reduced even more after the school was rebuilt and parking expanded on its existing grounds.
“We’ve really had to be prudent with our allocation of gym and field time with increased demands to make sure that each sport has the time they need to be successful,” said Phil Clark, assistant principal over athletics.
According to Quincy Lewis, athletic director, the lacrosse teams have to be scheduled on the football field along with boys soccer in the spring. The track team needs time there too. The turf field put in for soccer years ago can only be used for practices because it’s too short to meet regulation game size.
“Lehi is in the worst situation,” Lewis said. “Most other schools have three or four fields and at least three gyms. We only have the one practice field besides the football field since the tennis courts had to be moved to the north side to create more parking spaces.
“Somehow we have to find places for sophomore football, lacrosse and soccer teams and the band to practice, not to mention PE classes,” he continued. “The demands on our gym space are also great. All of our facilities are pretty busy.
“More use means more wear and tear,” Lewis said. “It’s also challenging to find time to do essential maintenance. Custodians are having to do the surface work to protect floors during lunchtimes or very early or late in the day more often because of heavy use.”
When turf fields began to be installed in the Alpine School District, they were touted as the answer to soaring maintenance costs and the need for more field availability.
Matt Norman, who supervises athletics at Alpine School District, said those trumpeted advantages haven’t entirely worked out. “We have not seen any evidence of cost savings, but turf has allowed us to increase our utilization,” he said.
“We average a 10-year life cycle for our turf fields. Additional use on the fields has increased maintenance and repair costs, but our life cycle average has remained the same,” Norman said.
Other things sometimes require the district’s support as well. “If there are changes that will affect all high schools because of a safety change or a rule change, for example, when shot clocks were added to basketball, the school district will go through the budget process to assist schools with these changes,” he said.
Another challenge has been providing sufficient support to athletes by certified athletic trainers. The long-serving trainers at Lehi and American Fork high schools, who are both teachers as well, resigned from their training duties when the addition of new sports made their workloads impossible to juggle.
Norman said the district specifies that athletic trainers be available for the sports and levels listed below. “The home team is responsible for providing that. If there are two athletics events taking place at a school, then one athletic trainer could cover both events,” he said.
• Fall: Football (3 Levels), Girls Soccer (Varsity), Volleyball (Varsity)
• Winter: Wrestling (2 Levels), Girls Basketball (2 Levels), Boys Basketball (2 Levels)
• Spring: Boys Soccer (Varsity), Baseball (Varsity), Softball (Varsity), G&B Lacrosse (2 Levels)
Competitions not covered: G&B Tennis, G&B Golf, Swim, Drill, Cross Country*, Cheer, Track*
*Athletic Trainers will cover cross country and track invitational meets where it involves three or more schools.
Former trainer Becky Bailey from American Fork explained what happened. “I would estimate that lacrosse and volleyball being added to our spring schedules added an additional 15-20 hours a week of extra coverage.
“Lacrosse practices couldn’t even start until track practice was over because runners could be hit by balls, so they didn’t even start practice until 5:30. This is when most sports were winding down their practices,” she continued.
“Girls LAX would practice from 5:30 to 7:30 and then the boys would come at 7 and share the field for a half hour and then go until 9 p.m. Varsity games were at 7 p.m. ‘under the lights.’
“Volleyball practices for us didn’t start until 6 p.m. because two of our volleyball players were also playing tennis and so our coach accommodated for them to be able to participate in both sports,” Bailey said.
“It was fantastic for these student-athletes to be able to participate in both sports, but it made their practices go even later. Their games were equivalent to lacrosse timewise; they usually would end around 9.”
The results of all these adjustments were that Bailey “was working two full-time professions — teaching and athletic training. It was difficult to find time to work out, fulfill community and family responsibilities and have free/down time to do things I enjoyed. My health was suffering.
“It’s hard to come to school at 7 a.m., work through your lunch to get things done that you can’t do after school because you’re in the training room, go to the training room and start practices, evaluations, rehabilitation of kids and then go to a game or practice late into the evening.
“On a typical game day, this meant 7 a.m. until 9:30-10 p.m. without stopping. Once that was over, I would head back to my classroom to grade assignments, update grades, set up labs etc. I had days where I was at the school until 1 or 2 a.m. getting things done. That wasn’t sustainable,” Bailey said.
“I loved my job and still do love being an athletic trainer, but at a 6A high school I’m available to 600+ athletes. I just couldn’t do both jobs anymore.”
Now, instead of having the continuity of long-serving trainers on staff, Norman said American Fork, Lehi and Skyridge contract with Advanced Orthopedics for AT coverage.
