Providing a real boost
From concession stands to 50-50 tickets, program sales to pregame meals, one group of organizations is aptly named when it comes to high school football.
Booster clubs.
"Could we exist without them? ... I suppose you could send a bunch of high school kids on the field in uniforms, throw in a couple of officials and have a game,"Butler High School Athletic Director Curt Phillips said.
"What booster clubs give you is atmosphere. They turn the game into an event. From that aspect, they are invaluable."
And the work they do is immense.
Butler boosters President Alicia Emrick said that organization has 50 parents working a Friday night home game. Some show up at 1 p.m. for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff.
"It takes time to get everything going,"she said. "We have to run water across the field to our concession stand, get the booths cleaned up. ... Then it's 11:30 at night before we all can go home."
Emrick puts in nearly 40 hours of work per week for the boosters.
"I work part-time on top of that," she said. "This is like a voluntary full-time job."Freeport boosters President Tammy Hughes has been involved with that organization for 15 years. Her youngest son is a senior on this year's Yellowjacket team."It's my life," Hughes says of her boosters work. "I take at least one hour every day just looking over everything. You never know what you're going to come across on e-mail."The hours are worth it to all of us. We even buy the coaches sideline jackets. They're more than football coaches to our kids. They serve as mentors, friends, disciplinarians. They play many roles, and we appreciate them."The largest football boosters organization in Butler County belongs to Mars. The policy there is if you have a kid in the football program, you've become a booster."We all need to pitch in and help out,"Mars boosters President Chris Kaclik said. "It's amazing what you can accomplish when you work together."For 10 years, Mars boosters have provided an annual $2,500 scholarship to a senior member of the football team.The smallest boosters club in the county is at Slippery Rock, where only six members comprise the Quarterback Club."Parents want their kids to play sports, but they don't want to participate,"SRQuarterback Club President Doreen Osselborn said."We have to go to various clubs in school to get help. If it wasn't for the junior class and the girls basketball team, we couldn't run a concession stand here."People don't want to be bothered. That's a shame."Seneca Valley's booster participation was lagging a bit — until Raiders head coach Ron Butschle assumed leadership of the organization."Coach Butschle has a dynamic personality and he's definitely boosted our numbers,"SV booster secretary Desiree Gress said. "Before he came, we'd have booster meetings and the coaches didn't care."Win or lose, he (Butschle) shows up at the meeting. When the coach shows up, more people come. Knowing the head coach is going to be there is our No. 1 draw."
Football game programs cost a few dollars at the gate. They cost a few months of time for booster members."We get started on that in July,"Karns City Quarterback Club President Glen Callender said. "Once we get into it, it takes all day, making calls and following them up for advertising."Our program is 60 pages. It can't get any bigger and stay stapled together."Emrick said Butler boosters work all summer on the program book. They send letters out to prospective advertisers in April.Mars booster Tracy Slater goes to work on the Planets' program as soon as the previous season ends."She does an incredible job there,"Kaclik said. "We have a 192-page program loaded with advertisers."While nearly every school sells out its allotment of programs on game night, program sales aren't where the money is made."We profit from the ads,"Gress said. "The school district profits from ticket sales, the band profits from the concession stand, we profit from 50-50 tickets and programs."We make about $9,000 on program ad sales."
Feeding a football crowd isn't easy."We go through nearly 750 hot dogs, 50 pizzas, 20 pounds of taco meat. ... It can get a little crazy,"Emrick said.Knoch goes through 200 hot dogs and approximately 150 hamburgers on game night, along with 10 large bags of nacho chips."It takes 12 or 14 people to work that stand,"Knoch booster Heather Venesky said. "We have six people work the windows, a few of the dads doing the grill."We'll offer a specialty sandwich now and then that somebody cooks up and brings to the game in a roaster. Those always go pretty quick."Slippery Rock's boosters buy their food in bulk from Sam's Club and cook it themselves."We'll go through 168 hot dogs per home game,"Osselborn said. "We also serve meatball subs, Italian sausage, kielbasa. ... We try to offer a wide assortment."That means football players — and they are plentiful.
During preseason camp, Seneca Valley's boosters prepare 80 meals a night for two weeks."On game nights, our coaches want the team to eat dinner together, so we pay for the food and the school prepares it in the cafeteria,"Gress said. "We probably put together 2,000 meals or so, all told. It's a big undertaking."Knoch's boosters prepare lunches for the team every day during training camp, along with a second meal when the team goes through three-a-day practices.Moniteau's boosters feed 120 players — junior high through varsity — each day during camp as well."We cook all of the food in the home economics room,"Moniteau Quarterback Club President Kathy Manuel said. "We give them pasta and potatoes to keep them from cramping up, bananas for nutrition, things like that.""We make food for the boys for away games, too,"Freeport's Hughes said. "That includes the cheerleaders and coaches. Our goal is to be one unit, one family."
Booster clubs need finances to operate and generate those funds on their own."We've had a car wash-a-thon the past two years, the players and cheerleaders participate and everyone has a blast,"Slippery Rock boosters secretary Erica Papley said."We do it right before school and football camp starts. It's like a last hurrah for the summer and we make over $1,000."Karns City does a Night at The Races — a videotaped horse race with a chance on each horse available for $10 — and an annual duck race during Riverfest in East Brady."The duck race is incredibly popular,"Callender said. "We drop little plastic ducks in the creek and the first one to the finish line wins. We sell 700 ducks at $5 a shot and raise more than $3,000."Seneca Valley's boosters raise money through yard sign sales, a clothing booth, golf outing and a coaches card.The coaches card, put together by Coach Butschle, offers discounts from 20 local vendors and is sold through the boosters."We need between $50,000 and $75,000 to do everything we do, so we work hard on fundraising,"Gress said.Mars does a fundraising golf tournament each year at Krendale, this year's event attracting 176 golfers.Moniteau raises $1,500 every year through horse chip bingo."If the horse does his thing on your square, you win,"Manuel said.Freeport has 18 local businesses offering discounts on its Blue and Gold Card, which the boosters sell for $10."We sell about 1,000 every year,"Hughes said. "We buy the boys' letterman jackets every year and the money goes toward that expense."
"We've had some loyal people help us for a long time,"Slippery Rock's Papley said. "Joe Schaefer's youngest son just graduated from college, yet he still does all the PR work for our program."He finds sign sponsors. ... He's done a lot of legwork like that for us for years. I don't know where'd we be without him."Helen and Arlene McCurdy, whose family owned the former McCurdy Farm where Slippery Rock High School now sits, have helped set up the concession stand at the high school games for 10 years.Arlene McCurdy makes an individual scrapbook for each player as well."They've always been there to support us and they haven't had any boys play football here," Papley said.Kaclik said Mr. and Mrs. Clay have prepared soup, hot sausage, kielbasa and pepperoni rolls for the Mars concession stand "for as long as anyone can remember.""We don't even know their first names,"Kaclik said. "They haven't had kids involved in the program. They just wanted to give something to the community."Freeport football player Shane Bargerstock — now a senior — became paralyzed during an on-field collision two years ago. The Yellowjacket boosters put together a spaghetti dinner, Chinese raffle and accepted monetary donations to help the family with medical costs."We raised a substantial amount," Hughes said. "You're talking about a life-changing event there."We wanted to help any way we could. That's what boosters are all about. We help each other."
