Kalispell Middle School bursting with participation
A group of students gather around Kalispell Middle School Activities Director Dallas Stuker at the start of basketball tryouts on Monday, October 18. Two gyms and four sessions were used to divide the students up into manageable groups.
Jacob Ridgeway (42) tries to evade a tackle during the last game between two of the three Kalispell Middle School seventh grade football teams on Tuesday, October 12.
Tucker Cronk and a row of students sit along the wall of the old gym at Kalispell Middle School waiting for session one of the seventh grade basketball tryouts on Monday, October 18.
The gym at Kalispell Middle School is just about booked solid for the next several months.
Participation in extracurricular activities has exploded this fall, and school officials expect the numbers to remain high all year.
The number of students who participated in a fall sport increased 33 percent from last year. There were 164 students out for football, up from 139 last year; 149 volleyball players, up from 102 in 2009; and 41 cross country runners, up from 25 last season.
That total of 354 participants puts the middle school on track to exceed 680 students out for sports in 2009-10.
Those numbers include totals for each activity and may include students who play more than one sport.
“We had very good turnout for fall,” middle school activities director Dallas Stuker said.
That good turnout meant the school had 14 volleyball teams this season, he said. There were enough students for three seventh-grade football teams and two eighth-grade teams.
The middle school doesn’t offer sports to sixth-graders because they can participate in city and Rotary programs, Stuker said.
The high participation rate is due in part to higher enrollment at the middle school. There are about 1,020 students enrolled this fall, more than have ever attended the middle school.
With more students at school, there are naturally more students out for sports, Stuker said. He anticipates extracurricular participation to remain high throughout winter and spring sports.
So far, that seems accurate. The boys’ basketball season began this week, and 126 seventh- and eighth-graders attended tryouts. It’s not as many as the 140 to 150 players that coaches anticipated, but it is higher than last year’s 119 players.
Tryouts at the middle school level help determine which team the boys will be on. No one is cut from a team in middle school, and no team is stacked with the best players, Stuker said.
“We try to split them up as even as we can,” he said.
Some teams may be slightly larger than the school and the players might like. Ideally, teams would have about 10 players each, Stuker said, but the middle school can only pay 12 coaching stipends for boys’ basketball, enough for six seventh-grade teams and six eighth-grade teams.
“We try to keep the teams as small as we can, but with the budget crunch and levy not passing, it’s made it a challenge” because the school can’t offer additional coaching stipends, Stuker said. “The teams might be a little bigger this year.”
The middle school has about $111,900 to spend this year on stipends for about 60 coaches in basketball, football, volleyball, cross country, wrestling, tennis and track. In addition to the 12 boys’ basketball stipends, there are another 12 stipends for girls’ basketball, which begins in January.
The girls’ season starts later because there isn’t enough gym space to run the boys’ and girls’ seasons simultaneously, Stuker said.
Kalispell Public Schools had considered charging students a $25-per-sport fee at the middle school this fall.
Officials estimated the charge could have generated anywhere from $15,000 to $19,000, which would have helped alleviate a $603,000 budget deficit in the elementary district.
School board trustees rejected the pay-to-play proposal and made other cuts to balance the budget. It was good news for many middle school athletes and their families, Stuker said.
“I think a lot of kids would play even if they had to pay a fee, but we probably wouldn’t have seen as many kids come out,” he said. “It’s good for some kids that we don’t have one this year.”
The tight budget did have one impact on middle school teams this fall: Kalispell players did not travel this season, Stuker said.
“Our travel budget in football and volleyball was cut,” he said. “But other teams do come and play us, so we still see some outside competition, which is good.”
Requirements for middle school athletes are less demanding than more advanced programs, but students still must meet some standards. Players must be in good academic standing, and the school maintains a noneligibility list, Stuker said.
“If you’re failing any classes, you’re ineligible,” he said.
Middle school sports teach students important lessons about competition and teamwork, Stuker said. It also helps them make new friendships that can last through high school and beyond.
“That’s the biggest thing: teaching values and creating relationships and friendships,” he said.
But the middle school programs have another benefit. Many students trying new sports this season will one day go on to programs at Flathead or Glacier high school.
The high school coaches “seem to be pretty happy with the turnout that we’ve had so far,” Stuker said.
Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@ dailyinterlake.com