Gloucester Alumni

By Michael Farrell
Staff Writer, Gloucester Daily Times

Richard Wilson says he knows a neighbor with four sons in Gloucester High School, and that neighbor expects to pay $2,100 for his boys to play football and hockey.

Wilson also knows many cannot afford those costs. So he and his Gloucester Fishermen Athletic Association colleagues are trying to raise enough money so that each of the 830 students in the athletic program will be able to play. And to do that, the athletic association continues to carry out a massive membership and fund-raising drive to recruit 1,000 new members at $50 apiece, raising $50,000.

At a School Committee meeting last week, Wilson and fellow association co-president Jonathan Pope presented the committee with a $10,000 check to offset some of those fees for Gloucester's student-athletes, and the committee referred the fees schedule back to the City Council's Budget and Finance Committee. The school board meeting drew a number of parents of high school hockey players concerned with the soaring fees — and those fees have risen like gas prices.

In 2005, the fees ranged from $50 to $125. For the coming school year, they have been pegged to start at $205 for track and field — topping out at $475 per player for hockey.

School officials have consistently maintained that the school will not deny any athletes the chance to be part of a team because of cost, and families can request waivers from the fees. A family's ability to pay the student's athletic fees will be determined, Wilson said, by team coaches and Kim Patience, the school's athletic director.

Patience could not be reached for comment, but Wilson said that the Athletic Department's evaluation will also set an amount an athlete or family can reasonably pay — and the association covers the rest.

This year, however, for those students who cannot afford the athletic fees, the Fishermen Athletic Association has instituted a new way for students to work off their fees. The $10,000 the association granted school officials last week is designed to be used as a pool account from which students will be able to earn their fee money by helping with field maintenance, such as painting bleachers and cleaning the fields. That should also save the schools costs on maintenance.

Wilson readily concedes he wishes the association's funding of school sports programs wasn't necessary — that the city and school department could and would adequately fund interscholastic athletics. He also notes that's simply not the reality in Gloucester today. And failure to grow the Fishermen Athletic Association — or to meet its funding and membership goals — is not an option for what is now a 250-member group.

"I don't want to hear that," he said when asked what would happen if the membership drive falls short. "We will succeed."

The athletic association is sending an application form out to all the households in the city either by mail or hand-delivered by a student.

"This community is such sports-fanatic community, I can't believe we wouldn't get support," said Wilson. And his organization is providing incentives that would entice even the most casual Gloucester sports fan and supporter to join the effort.

On the first Saturday of each month, the association will have a members' drawing in which someone will win a pair of tickets to a Patriots, Celtics, Red Sox or Bruins game, depending on the season. For the first drawing — on the first Saturday of September — Wilson will be sacrificing two of his own Patriots' tickets — on the 50-yard line and in the 10th-row — for the Sept. 21 game against the Miami Dolphins. A month after that, the drawing will be for a game against the Denver Broncos.

The Gloucester Fishermen Athletic Association has a lot of money to raise in five months, and Wilson, who says that he would not be the man he is today if it where not for the discipline, organization and team spirit of having played sports. He said that he plans on personally knocking door to door looking for members.

"Nobody will be denied because of money," he said, "and that's a promise."

Wilson said the Gloucester Fishermen Athletic Association has a steady annual revenue of $15,000 from sign advertisements on the playing fields. An additional $12,500 comes from yearly membership fees paid by current members, and it receives about $10,000 in donations each year.

Presently, the association has a little more than $30,000 in the bank. Even with its steady revenue, though, it barely breaks even, Wilson said,

With $50,000 in membership fees, he added, the organization would be in a good place.

"I know we can do it," he said.