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Jan. 24, 2001 By Tom Vaughan The recurrent message from the audience at Tuesday night’s, Jan. 22, Re-6 Mancos School Board meeting was: If Mancos doesn’t hire a football coach, and soon, parents will send their students to a school that does have football and as a result the already-strapped Mancos district budget could become even worse shape. The fans’ frustration was fueled by the fact that no long-range solution has been found since longtime head coach Terry Newlin resigned from coaching football at the end of the 2000 football season, according to local football fan Duffy Baumgartner when the problem was stated. Gordon Shepherd and Larry Russell, Mancos residents who both teach at Montezuma-Cortez High School, stepped forward as football coaches to ensure the school would have a football team this past fall. Both made it clear it was only a temporary solution and they would not be continuing. This took the heat off the school board and they turned their attentions elsewhere, letting the issue slide until now they face the same situation they did a year ago. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, was also a common statement during the discussion. The fans petitioned the school board recently to redirect the board and administration to hire a coach, regardless of budget, staffing or other considerations. The discussion item led off with Mancos High School Principal Gary Hill passing on to the board a stack of petitions he had received. The petitions, placed in businesses around town, had garnered 248 parent and 35 student signatures to the proposition that Mancos High should continue to have a football program. Board President Joyce Stonehocker pointed out that hers was one of the signatures collected. The board packet included a list of possible football solutions, prepared by Hill on Jan. 21. Hill followed that up with a proposal on financial aspects at the board meeting. Hill’s list of alternatives numbered five: 1. Reallocate money from aide positions to a football coach salary. 2. Hire someone (probably a local resident) as a permanent substitute to coach football. This person would have to be financially independent of the coaching salary. 3. Hire a coach to double as a tech support person. This would conflict with the school’s ties with BOCS, Hill pointed out. 4. Hire a football coach when and if a teaching position opens up K-12. 5. See if someone from the Fort Lewis College football program would coach. Hill expressed concern over the youth of those possible candidates. In his summary, Hill favored the first option in order to have this person in the building to truly build a program. He went on to note that he had been contacted by a young man with good credentials who could perhaps fill the position. In the financial summary to support option one, Hill estimated it would cost $26,064 to hire a person with eight years of teaching experience as a half-time teacher and a part-time teaching aide who would also function as head coach in football and track. All but $2,311 of this could be found, he said, in a full-time aide position that is being vacated ($11,401), the pay for a half-time resource aide in sixth grade ($7,000) and the funds allocated for a head football coach ($2,601) and a head track coach. Hill noted Tim Dunham has indicated that he would like to have someone else be the head (track) coach because of his regular job’s commitments. Turning to the petitions, which were anonymous as to authorship, Stonehocker asked who had drafted the petition and why was it needed? Longtime MHS footballfan Dan Rose said he was the author and the purpose was to get the board to take action. "You people have had plenty of time," Rose said. Stonehocker pointed out that the present board, mostly new, had inherited the problem and they were gathering information , including asking for options from staff. She emphatically stated, "We have never discussed not having football!" She also noted the school, "has seven PE teachers on our staff and we can’t fill the position." Audience members demanded that the board tell Hill to hire a football coach. Hill said, "Till I have a definitive number this is how much I can spend. I can’t talk to anybody. Athletic Director Kevin Dimmick pointed out last year they had advertised the position, had four responses and couldn’t offer them anything but the coaching salary because there were no teaching positions open. Superintendent Connie Blanchard said it had been suggested that she fire a new, probationary teacher in order to open up a position into which a football coach could be hired. She said absolutely no to firing a probationary teacher who’s doing a good job to hire a football coach. This position was seconded by Stonehocker. Ray Martinez suggested hiring a local resident to coach football would solve the position problem and also provide continuity for the program. Randy Smith asked about the pros and cons of this approach as compared with an in-house coach. Rose said, "Two years ago I volunteered to coach football and he found it didn’t work. Russell echoed that opinion, saying, "the coach needs to be someone on the staff who can stay in touch with the players between practices. This year some of the football players would not have remained eligible if it hadn’t been for Dimmick’s day-to-day support." Russell urged the board to support the high school football program, not as an antagonistic thing, but as a valuable activity and as a program that the middle school players can expect to move up to. Stonehocker ended the discussion with the statement, "wanting to fill this position as soon as possible," but the board hasn’t even had a first look at next year’s budget. She thanked the many citizens and Hill for the information and suggestions they had provided.
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Copyright © 2001 the Cortez
Journal. All rights reserved. |
