Today is Tax Day. I know you think Tax Day is Thursday, April 15. It is not.
Tax day is the day you actually finish your taxes, then spend the next 5 minutes pounding your chest like a slab of London broil to re-start your heart after you realize just how much the feds are clawing out of your wallet.
By the way, the quickest route to a big tax bill is divorce plus a bad agreement plus a dumb wirhholding strategy plus re-marriage (the famed marriage penalty). Don’t do it. Well, at least the first three. The fourth part of the equation has been fine.
You’re probably wondering what this gripe has to do with high school sports. Well, schools are funded by taxes, and a portion of those taxes funds a large percentage of scholastic sports. Logically, my Tax Day gripe should take me to the conclusion that school sports should be eliminated and farmed out to clubs, a la Europe.
But that’s not where I’m going. First, since I’m obviously a huge fan of high school sports, it’d be a wee bit hypocritical and foolish to call for the elimination of school sports. Second, when you compare athletic budgets to a school district’s general budget, sports (along with other extracurricular activities) are a bargain, given what they bring back to the student, community and school.
While there are storm clouds gathering for scholastic sports funding, schools will need to resist the urge to look at athletics or band or science or clubs as expendable. It will be easy enough to do, especially when the pension funding tsunami hits in 2012 in Pennsylvania. As noted, there is real value in high school athletics that extends beyond the bottom line.
Hmm. You know what? I feel better already.
Because I can’t find my checkbook.
