By Victor Beck ’20
THE ROUNDUP
The Brophy sports department has a lot to consider when budgeting how much money is needed to accommodate for every sport, class or job that dwells in the realm of athletics on our campus.
It is a group effort between the coaches and the administration to make sure every piece of equipment is up to code or in need of replacement. Athletic Director Mr. Bill Woods has a pivotal role in making sure the coaches and teachers have all they need in order to teach students effectively.
“It is my job to make sure that the department spends prudently. I do my best to see that each sport has what it needs,” Mr. Woods said.
Coach Mr. Mike Schwertley ’99 said that his fellow colleagues work with great passion to make sure every student is getting the most out of their experience.
“There is a tremendous effort by all the coaches on campus to really teach young men how to grow,” Mr. Schwertley said. “All the cliches words that you hear, ‘work hard’, ‘be dedicated’, ‘teamwork’, all those things are cliche but they are going to carry people on to do great things far beyond the field of play.”
Brophy President Mrs. Adria Renke said that we budget for sports by keeping in mind what the student needs in order to get the most out of the experience.
“Sports are an activity we budget so that to the fullest extent a student can get what he needs to get out of the activity,” she said.
Mrs. Renke continued, “It’s not different for how we budget for speech and debate, or the immersion trips we want to budget just enough.”
An important part of budgeting is making sure you have the right amount of funds necessary to make the decisions that are most cost effective.
In the 2016-2017 annual reports 4% of the students tuition goes to Sports and Athletics.
Mrs. Renke said when you pay tuition, part of your tuition is the cost of educating.
“Whatever the tuition cost is, that is the cost it is going to be to educate you,” she said. “In that cost are teacher salaries, clubs, all the activities, the sports, everything you see.”
However, not all sports are school funded. Club sports are are all funded and paid for by the students themselves.
“Club sports use zero tuition dollars. Club sports are financed entirely by those athletes who participate,” Mr. Woods said,
Brophy’s on campus athletics and activities accounts for 12% of Brophy’s overall expenses.
Mrs. Renke said that there are a plethora of other events and programs at Brophy, sports is just another part that makes Brophy unique.
“We get to see theatre kids, we get the fine arts extravaganza, we get the BLAM magazine, the Poetry Out Loud, we get to see all of that so it’s a big part of who we are,” Mrs. Renke said. “Sports is a part of it too, but it doesn’t smother everything else. It’s a piece of the whole.”
