Parents and Private Donations Help Teams Make Ends Meet

Tom Vitello, athletic director at Servite High School, was ready to accept the idea of deficit spending.

Last March, the school’s basketball team was going to the CIF state final in Oakland. Vitello figured out that, after reimbursement by the CIF and donations from the players’ families, Servite would lose $1,839 on the trip.

An acceptable loss, but a loss just the same. Then came the telephone call.

“It was the day before we were to leave for Oakland, and this parent called and asked how much we were going to lose,” Vitello said. “He said he would cover the loss up to $3,000.”

Thus, the Friars won the Division III title and the school broke even on the trip.

For private schools, postseason play can cause financial hardships. And without public funds to help, these schools have to rely on the deep pockets of parents.

“We have parents who are doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs,” Whittier Christian Athletic Director Tom Caffrey said. “Consequently, they are in a good economic position to help out. We’ve got parents who contribute for special things, like playoffs. It’s an advantage private schools have.”

And an advantage they need, because private schools are hit especially hard by the cost of travel. With no district school buses to rely on, transportation must be chartered. While those costs are anticipated for the regular season, playoff participation can unexpectedly drain an athletic budget.

Public and private schools receive some reimbursement for postseason travel--the CIF pays $2 per mile for teams traveling by air, $1 per mile by bus. But that covers only a portion of the costs.

Public schools usually get the district buses for free or for a minimum cost. Mater Dei, a private school, has a $50,000 contract with a bus company this year.

So private schools must either absorb the losses or look to parents to ante up.

Even with the financial generosity of its students’ parents, Servite lost about $800 on the state basketball playoffs last season. But that figure would have been considerably higher had it not been for outside help.

Parents of Servite basketball players donated $80 for the trip to the state championship game. Another parent arranged transportation, chartering a bus for the trip to Oakland. That cut the cost by more than half.

Then came the parent with the open checkbook.

Neither the parent who paid for chartering the bus nor the one who covered the deficit from the trip to Oakland had a son on the basketball team.

“By nature, parents at private schools are more involved,” Vitello said. “They do more than just send their kids off to schools. They always want to help. It’s a tremendous, tremendous advantage.”

One that public schools, no matter how supportive the parents are, do not enjoy.

Jerry Jelnick, Corona del Mar athletic director, said private schools have a slight advantage over public schools when soliciting private funds to cover travel costs.

He said private donations to public schools must be made through the school district instead of directly to the school, as is the case with private institutions.

“We just can’t have someone walk in here (and) write a check for $5,000 for our expenses,” Jelnick said.

Mater Dei, which played in the state Division I basketball final last season, used its financial resources to break even on the trip to Oakland.

The CIF reimburses each participating school 50 cents on every presold ticket. Mater Dei was initially given 362 tickets, which were sold in the first hour.

Five days before the game, Mater Dei football Coach Bruce Rollinson was sent to Oakland to buy $6,000 worth of tickets at the arena box office. They could have been bought in Southern California through a ticket agency, but that would have meant a $1-per-ticket service charge.

Mater Dei made about $300 off ticket sales and charged students $10 each to ride the bus to the game. The school sent six buses with 48 kids each to Oakland, not counting the players, band and pep squad.

“It’s the only way we could have done it and not lost money,” said Mater Dei Athletic Director Gary McKnight, who is also the basketball coach. “We went to the state final in 1987 and lost money. We didn’t understand how it worked then.”

With reimbursement from CIF, fees for the bus ride to students and some money from the school’s athletic fund, Mater Dei broke even on the trip, which included a lavish victory party after the Monarchs won the state title last season.

But the bottom line was that parental support was a key factor.

“We generate a lot of money through gate receipts at football and basketball games,” McKnight said. “Parents take an interest. We don’t go out into the community and ask for funds, but we do get donations.”

Which is a pleasant fact of life for a private school.

“We have hard-working, concerned parents,” Vitello said. “They realize limitations of a budget.”