Schools might have to
By Pat Bigold
pay higher dues for
state tourneys
Star-BulletinThe most talked about proposal at last week's Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors' Association conference was largely designed to do with raising gate revenues for the independent Hawaii High School Athletic Association. That proposal -- to regionalize state boys' and girls' basketball in a 12- or 16-team format -- was roundly defeated.
Maui and the Big Island would have been able to host their best teams in the early rounds.
Now the HHSAA gets down to the task of finding some real money to rely on for operating state tournaments in 1997-98.
The corporate dollar is there to the tune of about $88,000 (up from $31,500 last year) but gate revenues from the HHSAA's biggest money-maker, the state boys' basketball tournament, are surprisingly down.
So first-year HHSAA executive director Dwight Toyama will turn to his 64 member schools and ask them to dig deep into shallow pockets for increased membership dues.
Toyama has devoted much of his first year to widening the HHSAA's corporate support base. But Robert Kanaby, the executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations, told HIADA conference attendees last week that corporate sponsorship is ''tenuous" support and should not be relied upon ''to pay the electric bill."
''It's difficult to build your budget on anticipated revenue from the corporate sector because if the corporate sector has a bad year, and the stockholders or vice presidents you've developed a relationship with are no longer there, you could be left out.
"More and more of our member associations are finding that out,'' said Kanaby.
So, substantially increased dues, as painful as they may be, seem to be in the future of HHSAA member schools.
''It's an economic reality," said Kamehameha Schools secondary principal Tony Ramos, the president of the HHSAA. ''We have to meet our expenses."
Members currently pay a flat fee of $500 but this will likely go up considerably when the recommendations of an ad hoc committee, chaired by Ramos, are heard in a month or so.
''I'm not going to make a recommendation," said Toyama, who acknowledges this could be the toughest sell of his administration. ''I want them (principals) to decide how best to do this."
But he did say that he personally favors a sport-by-sport tournament fee in addition to an increased membership fee.
Idaho, which has the same number of students (62,000) as Hawaii, charges members $250 per year, and $25 per sport.
On this basis, Mililani would pay $750 altogether while LaPietra would pay $475.
But Toyama said it is not likely that the current membership fee would be reduced.
Kanaby also said that registration (or right-to-work) fees for sports officials, entry fees for tournament teams and admission prices are also solid sources of revenue.
''There is one state association that does not charge dues -- Michigan -- because it has such lucrative tournaments that there is no need," said Kanaby.
Kanaby said it is critical for HHSAA members to realize that sports are part of the educational program.
''Sports are important for developing our young people," said Kanaby. ''Corporations know that the best predictor of an employee's success is how active he or she was in high school sports.''
He said that some state associations also charge an entry fee for teams participating in tournaments that don't generate revenue, such as bowling or cross country.
Toyama came in for high praise from the lips of the national director for his one year on the job, a year in which he scrambled to find corporate backers and dealt with political fallout from the unseating of longtime HHSAA boss Ed Kiyuna.
''Dwight is a bright, intelligent, receptive young man who I think has worked very, very hard," said Kanaby. ''He's well-liked and respected and he should be.''
In Saturday's general assembly vote of the HIADA conference, a proposal to make ineligible for the state tournament any student-athlete who participates for two schools in the same regular season, was amended to exclude mainland transfers from the rule.
Also, the general assembly elected to continue the use of four officials in state soccer. The work group that handled that matter had recommended reducing the crew by one.