[Single Wing 77]

Football is expensive to start up. To build a field with lights, bleachers, press box and concession stands is a huge cost. New lights are in the nearly $400,000 range for bare minimum. Equipment especially helmets is outragious. Coaching stipends are generally in the $15,000 to $20,000 range per year including middle school teams. The schools with the biggest issues like Jenkins are isolated and have a large traveling expense to find competitive games. Barbourville has made some noise about starting a program but this has failed to come to fruition because of these issues. Berea has had issues for the last decade and have been on the verge of giving up football. Have they ever got their stadium back in order. Schools with proud football traditions like Pineville, Harlan and Middlesboro have trended down in numbers and results on the field in recent years. Those schools are feeling a financial crunch with the loss of jobs. How long before they go the way of Harrodsburg, Cumberland, Whitesburg, MC Napier, Lynch and Evarts?

All these things are true but they’re only one side of the coin. The money generated by football is more than any other more sport in most cases. Especially if the program is ran the right way. Small community, and independent schools are struggling mainly because of funding from the state, and loss of tax dollars. For instance, University of the Cumberland’s bought up a huge chunk of land in the Williamsburg school district a few years ago for expansion. UC being tax exempt, it was a huge problem for Williamsburg and from what I hear the school almost closed. They were able to turn it around though, thank goodness. I love the city/independent/community schools in our state. The state of Kentucky decided long ago that they didn’t really like the idea of city/independent school. Those schools will continue to play football until they close down I believe. There may be some schools that close and no longer play football for that reason, but I think cases like Trimble county will be very few.