Athletes playing for Green River High School won’t see as much action on the road as they have in previous years, thanks to a push to reduce the number of miles student-athletes travel and increase in the time spent in the classroom.
Sweetwater County School District No. 2 Athletics Director Tony Beardsley said he’s reduced the number of away events students participate in for the upcoming school year. One of the major pushes behind the reduction in travel is due to the Wyoming Legislature considering a cut in the amount the state covers in travel for school activities.
Currently the state covers 100 percent of the costs associated with travel, but may cut that amount to 86 percent in the coming legislative session. The hope is with cuts to how often high school teams leave school, the legislature will continue to fully fund school activities travel.
While the cut seems motivated solely by economic forces, Beardsley said the schedules will improve and allow students and teachers more time in school.
He said some teams were saddled with schedules that could take them out of school for nearly a week. or remove them midway through the week. One example school board treasurer Steve Core disagreed with was an away game scheduled in Star Valley for the high school basketball teams during their last season. Beardsley said that kind of scheduling would not occur this year, specifically mentioning Wednesday night basketball games. Other teams seeing some changes in their schedules include the tennis team, which will play about 90 percent of their games on a Friday or Saturday, and the swimming teams, which Beardsley said have previously competed in as many as four events during a single week.
Green River High School isn’t the only school to have changes in their athletics scheduling. Beardsley said changes will occur at Lincoln Middle School as well. One change will impact the middle school football program, which will see reduction in the number of games the 8th grade team will play. Last season, the team competed in 11 games, including two games Beardsley said were scheduled back-to-back. Beardsley disagrees with the number of games they were scheduled to play, believing 11 games were too many for the middle school team.
Beardsley believes both coaches and students will appreciate the new scheduling focus, as it means more opportunities to spend time with family during the athletics season.
“We are stepping up,” Beardsley said about athletics scheduling.
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