WANTED: BUDGET SOLUTION CRISIS MANAGEMENT IS NOT THE ANSWER FOR BOSTON ATHLETICS - The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)

No matter how the Boston budget fiasco turns out this year, thereis no question that a long-term solution to the annual question ofathletic funding must be attempted.

In the past 15 years, Boston's school budget has skyrocketednearly $220 million, yet the athletic/physical education budget inthe city has remained virtually the same. In good years, it goes up$200,000 or so, and in bad years, like this, $100,000 is trimmed.When you consider that Boston's coaches have received salaryincreases amounting to 49.5 percent this decade, it's easy to seehow much the programs have been downgraded.

Boston's school administrative leadership has never treatedathletics and physical education with respect. They've always beensomething to lean on when budget cuts were needed and they'vealways been viewed as a necessity rather than a priority.

In criticizing superintendent Laval Wilson's proposed $500,000cuts in school sports, Mayor Flynn cited a 1986 national studyamong urban school systems that found Boston had the highestadministrative costs per pupil of 13 comparably sized systems. Thatyear, Boston was 72 percent higher than the average system and 46percent higher than Pittsburgh, the next highest in the study.

While the city's Court Street school headquarters has beenoverflowing with administrators, the staff for athletics andphysical education has been reduced.

What was a 13-person department in 1978 is down to one, andall internal matters in the school once handled by athleticcoordinators will be handled by an unpaid designee of the school'sheadmaster.

In 1982, UMass-Boston athletic director Charlie Titus and thelate Frank Power worked to create a master plan for improvingphysical education and athletics.

Most of their plan was implemented in 1983, but it has sincecollapsed because the over-administered Boston School Departmentkept chipping away at the sports budget and its people.

Wilson's school sports proposal met with opposition fromSchool Committee members last week. They cited all the rightreasons school sports are necessary -- the incentive to keep kidsin school, scholarship opportunity, etc.

But the committee and Flynn, the most vocal proponent of highschool sports, are guilty of supporting school sports by rhetoricrather than by performance.

It's baffling that school sports and physical education, whichuse up less than one-half of 1 percent of the $360 million schoolbudget, dominated the news last week.

There were many other cuts in Wilson's $2.6 million reductionproposal, but the media and public focused on the school sportsproblem. It happens all the time. Propose cuts and start off withschool sports. It's sure to provoke reaction and indignation.

During the past year, we experienced the usual 'we're going tocut school sports' threats all over the suburbs, and as Septembernears, almost everything is neatly back in place. When will thepoliticians learn that their act is becoming increasingly boring?

Solutions galore have been forthcoming from all over,including one that proposed asking Boston's sports teams and itspro athletes to donate hefty sums.

Fund-raising and other temporary measures are not thesolutions.

Boston must establish a physical education and athleticcommittee that will recommend and guarantee that the city'sathletes have safe fields, proper medical attention, cleanuniforms, good coaching and solid administrative support.

An opportunity will be lost if this crisis merely becomesanother crisis in a year or two.

You will have to search long and hard to find an opponent ofhigh school sports, but in Boston, it's hard to find anyone willingto step forward and take the steps necessary to make them work. AMES ;08/24 NIGRO ;08/28,10:45 AMES27