By Chuck McGill -- Daily Staff Writer

Each morning, long before the sun peers over the mountains in the Shenandoah Valley, Dick Krol rouses from his bed and begins collecting.

Krol hits up businesses for extra cardboard boxes, tosses them in the bed of his blue Chevy pickup and heads to Stonewall Jackson High School, where he has directed the school's football program for 21 seasons. There, students have latched on to Krol's obsession, adding boxes to the heap throughout the day.

"Some days the stack in the back of his truck is obscene," Stonewall Jackson athletic director Todd Fannin said. "It's nothing to see him driving around town with a pile 10 feet high. That thing's loaded to the hilt."

His efforts to collect recyclable products and tote them to the county landfill are well-known by pupils, colleagues and the community, but his moonlighting venture is out of necessity — if he wants his beloved football program to survive.

The nation's struggling economy has left few unaffected, especially small high school athletic programs in Virginia. Each athletic director or coach has a story of economic hardship and plight of varying degrees, but every dollars-and-cents tale serves as a sobering reminder of how much the U.S. economy has deteriorated.

And as corporate executives from leading banks and automobile manufacturers clamor for billions in government bailout money, Krol, far away from the hustle and bustle of the nation's capital, is bypassing handouts, getting his hands dirty and raising the money he needs himself.

"It's amazing what he does," Stonewall Jackson girls basketball coach Jeff Burner said. "Almost every day he loads up his pickup and hauls a load away."

That money Krol receives, while not staggering, helps with the hidden costs that can cripple a football program and leave the athletic department as a whole searching the couch cushions to make ends meet.

"We are always scraping for money," Fannin said. "We are fairly self-sufficient."

The challenges the Stonewall Jackson athletic department faces are not unique, nor are they entirely new. The economic downturn has simply exacerbated existing financial issues, turning small cracks in the dam into gaping holes that become more difficult to plug as costs rise, budgets tighten and community supporters are left with less disposable income.

"Schools, like everyone, are definitely feeling the financial changes that are going around," said Jason Barbe, coordinator of student activities at Sherando. "We understand that our folks may not have the money to spend on the experience of coming to an athletic event like they have over the years."

That is the new challenge for athletic directors in Shenandoah, Warren, Frederick and Clarke counties: Create and balance a budget amid soaring costs and declining revenue while maintaining the status quo.

"It's a tight budget right now," said Matt Hiserman, who doubles as Strasburg's athletic director and assistant basketball coach. "A lot of people are saving expecting the worse, so they aren't coming out [to games] anymore. It's making things tough."

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Athletic budgets can differ greatly from school to school and county to county, although the sources of revenue and line items for expenses are fundamentally the same. When athletic directors carve out their budgets, officials, transportation and equipment represent almost the entire chunk of financial obligations for the year.

In Shenandoah County, schools are responsible for officiating costs, which have steadily increased with the cost of living and travel. At Stonewall Jackson, fees for officials totaled more than $24,000 in 2007-08. At Strasburg, officiating expenses eclipsed $29,000 during the same span. When adding VHSL membership costs and swimming pool fees, that number settled around $35,000.

The problem? The county provides only $20,000 for athletic programs to use however they wish. And while both Fannin and Hiserman expressed their gratitude for what the county provides — "We'd go bankrupt without that money," Fannin said — that cash comprises about one-third of a traditional small school athletic budget.

"We were already $15,000 in the hole," Hiserman said after applying the county's money to officials and other fees. "That doesn't factor in uniforms or equipment, basketballs or footballs. It has forced us to really watch what we are doing."

Athletic directors each have a different method of juggling their financial obligations. At Stonewall, Fannin takes $19,000 of his county allotment and spreads the wealth among individual programs for use at their discretion. Hiserman chooses to apply the money directly to officiating fees in the fall and winter, taking care of football, volleyball, basketball and wrestling. That gives him time to find the money ($9,000 in 2007-08) for spring officiating fees.

Craig Woshner, James Wood's coordinator of student activities, has his budget determined in part by how much Principal Joe Salyer allots. Woshner said the school division mandated 10 percent cuts prior to this year. Less money for James Wood means less money Salyer has to give Woshner, but with an impressive 8-2 season by the Colonels in football and the support of a strong boosters program, Woshner has mostly evaded the financial pinch. He believes the lack of affordable options for cash-strapped families have helped sustain gate receipts — the driving force behind nearly all athletic budgets.

"It's not quite as expensive to go to a high school football game as it is to go to the movies," Woshner said. "It's a pretty good value to come to a game and get cheap food."

The news was more grim for the Group A schools. Stonewall Jackson had a noticeable decline in gate receipts for football this fall, even with raising the ticket prices to $5, which is the norm in Virginia. Fannin said that, unlike county rival Strasburg, his school's fan base is much smaller, and that a rebuilding year versus a good year on the gridiron can influence gate receipts by as much as $15,000.

Hiserman, however, had similarly discouraging results. Under first-year head coach Mark Roller, the Rams went 2-8. According to Hiserman, revenue for football dropped by nearly $5,000, which means about 200 fewer people per game attended Strasburg's home football contests this year than in 2007.

Any dip in gate receipts is critical to a high school athletic program, especially when considering what athletic directors term "hidden costs." For instance, at Stonewall Jackson, Fannin allocates $5,500 of the $20,000 provided by the county for football use. But at the end of each football season, Krol has to send all football equipment — helmets, shoulder pads and other gear — to be reconditioned and checked for safety. The cost of that alone can approach $6,000, leaving Krol scrambling for recyclables so he can pitch a few dollars back into the football coffers.

"Most people don't understand the hidden costs," said Roger Wilkins, Central's assistant athletic director and head boys basketball coach. "When we got done with our football season, all but nine of 90 helmets went out. A good deal of our shoulder pads go out. If there's anything wrong, we've got to replace them."

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Skyline athletic director Michael Patierno considers himself fortunate. Patierno oversees programs in their infancy at the second-year school, and while items remain on all of his coaches' "want" lists, uniforms and equipment are still new. That's helping to ease concerns in a tough economy, but Patierno remains cautious.

"We are not leaving any stone unturned," he said. "We want to work hard and not go back to the community or go back to the same businesses and say, 'We need money, we need money, we need money.' They are routinely getting asked for money to support both Skyline and Warren County. We got to make sure we don't go to the same well to the point that well gets dry."

So what are athletic directors doing to combat the slumping economy?

Patierno said he hasn't received specific instructions from his superintendent regarding cost-cutting measures, but he is acting pre-emptively. Like most schools, Patierno is tailoring sports schedules to make for shorter trips, less frequent travel and fewer buses. One tactic being used by athletic directors is to schedule boys and girls teams at the same venue or for junior varsity teams to stay through varsity contests on the road. This means the varsity and JV squads can share a bus, although it makes for a longer day for the average student-athlete.

Frederick County Schools Superintendent Patricia Taylor requested a 20 percent cut in transportation, which includes academic field trips.

"Athletics is not alone in this," said Woshner, who has also adopted the philosophy of using fewer buses.

Woshner also is adjusting his plans for purchasing new uniforms. To stymie the annual costs of new duds for his sports teams, he staggers those purchases. In one year, football and basketball may receive new uniforms, but in the next volleyball and tennis will don new attire. In the past, Woshner ordered uniforms every four years, but that may be adjusted to five.

At Stonewall Jackson, Fannin said he has "quietly taken a step back from running a full VHSL schedule" in addition to playing Group AA opponents close in proximity in lieu of long-standing rivalries — like George Mason — that require more travel.

Hiserman thinks even smaller. Instead of purchasing two dozen footballs in August, he order just 12. Instead of handing a half-dozen new basketballs to the boys and girls teams, each received three.

Unlike James Wood, student-athletes at Strasburg rarely drench brand new uniforms in sweat. Hiserman said the boys basketball team is on its "seventh or eighth year" in their uniforms. The girls basketball team will be back in the same old uniforms this winter. Hiserman splurged and purchased 60 new home jerseys for the football team prior to this season, which came at a price tag in excess of $4,500.

"That was just the tops," he said. "And not top of the line either."

Wilkins said keeping uniforms and equipment new isn't Central's MO.

"We just have to slow down on everything," he said. "People are out there losing their jobs, companies are cutting back, people are being asked to take a pay cut just to keep their job. Fundraising isn't an option, because you certainly don't want to go and ask people for things.

"We'll just have to make do with what we got."

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The prevailing thought amongst athletic directors is that because the 2008-09 budgets were set in the spring prior to the initial surge in gas prices and subsequent economic crisis, keeping the end balance in the black is not impossible — yet.

A more difficult challenge may come this spring, when athletic directors could be forced to begrudgingly meet the fiscal demands of their superiors. If James Wood's school division cuts funds for 2009-10, Salyer will have less money to dole out to Woshner's athletic programs.

"That concerns me," Woshner said. "That's going to trickle down to the athletic department just like it will trick down to math or English."

Schools will have to decide whether to purchase overhead projectors and easels, or footballs and rosin bags.

The cuts could be severe.

"The ultimate drastic move is when you start cutting programs," Fannin said. "We are at the maximum number of teams that we can provide quality players for. In this economy, that's going to become more difficult."

Hiserman acknowledged that cutting entire programs is possibility, but a last resort. He has been asked to come up with three plans where he could cut 1, 3 and 5 percent from his budget. Hiserman said that even 1 percent would have a dramatic effect on all programs, but that 5 percent would likely involve either giving the ax to coaches or programs.

Until then, athletic directors will rely on a thrift mindset, community support and selective fundraising to stay afloat. Maybe all the worrying, planning and number crunching will be for naught.

"Who knows what's going to happen next year?" Patierno said. "I'm assuming things get tighter next year, but maybe it doesn't. We want to do things better, we want to do things smarter, and we don't want to be a burden to the school system.

"But the truth is, we don't know."

R Contact Chuck McGill at cmcgill@nvdaily.com

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