Funding for high school boys' gymnastics was eliminated in FairfaxCounty on Thursday when the school board voted 11-1 to adopt a budgetthat addresses the system's $40 million shortfall for the fiscal yearthat begins July 1.
Only 12 of the county's 24 high schools had teams with four ormore gymnasts this winter, with approximately 100 boys competing.Other than Alexandria schools Washington-Lee and Yorktown, no otherVirginia public high schools support boys' gymnastics programs.
'We took a big hit [with the budget] this year,' said BrucePatrick, Coordinator of Student Activities and Athletic Programs forFairfax County, who added that middle school and high schoolintramural sports were also cut and that some funding for athletictravel was eliminated.
Participation was down slightly from the 2001 season, when 116boys competed. By contrast, 21 Fairfax County schools had girls'gymnastics teams (with over 200 girls participating) last winter, andschools throughout the state field teams.
'At the beginning of the year, they said we were fine. Toward theend, we heard there was a potential place to drop the sport,' saidLake Braddock Coach Eric Kim, whose Bruins won the Virginia AAANorthern Region championship on May 14. 'Our $80,000 costs out of awhole [athletic] budget of $800,000 to $1 million. . . . We werehoping that because of that, dropping us wouldn't make an impact.It's not a shock, but it's definitely disappointing.'
Two days after the Northern Region championships, a group ofseniors from Northern Virginia's high school programs won theNational High School Senior Gymnastics championships in Las Vegas,with Lake Braddock senior All-Met Justin Spring setting a nationalrecord in the all-around.
'We were kind of banking on it being hard to shut us down afterwinning nationals,' Kim said.
The sport could be moved to club status, but Kim said he doubtsthat it will survive at that level because of the difficulty infinding qualified coaches and judges who will work for little or nopay.
St. Stephen's/St. Agnes Coach Kathy Jenkins was honored by theTeewarton Award foundation for her dedication to girls' lacrosse.Jenkins -- the All-Met Coach of the Year in 1995 and 1997 -- and DickEdell, the former head lacrosse coach at the University of Maryland,were the first coaches to be honored by the foundation, which wasestablished in 2000. . . .
In all, 10 Washington area boats came home with medals from lastweekend's Scholastic Rowing Association of America Championships inOak Ridge, Tenn. McLean's senior girls' quad was the only team towin, but the following teams also had top-three finishes: St. Albans'boys' varsity eight (second), McLean boys' junior double (third) andsenior four (third), Sidwell Friends' boys' junior single (second),Bethesda-Chevy Chase's girls' junior four (second), Jefferson'sgirls' freshman eight (third), T.C. Williams's girls' lightweighteight (third) and varsity eight (third).
Loudoun County's girls and Potomac Falls's boys each won VirginiaAA Region II tennis championships Saturday, and both teams did itwith victories over Handley in Winchester. The victories earned eachteam a berth in the state semifinals, scheduled for June 6-8 atRadford (girls) and Virginia Tech (boys).
The girls' defeated Handley, 5-1, preventing the Judges fromwinning the region for the first time in four years. In the boys'final, Potomac Falls beat the defending state champion, 5-2.
