It was a story which maybe many of the readers ignored or didn’t think about reading, but one which could have a big impact on Richmond Senior High athletics next year.

The board of directors of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association approved a statement at the close of the association’s spring meetings. The statement “strongly encourages” schools to voluntarily cut down the number of regular-season games, specifically mentioning the number of nonconference games in both junior varsity and non-revenue varsity programs.

Richmond athletic director Hal Shuler was not aware of the statement, but agreed in today’s economic situation it was the right decision to make.

However, while the NCHSAA approved the statement, it is not etched in stone that the schools will have to cut any games from the 2009 fall schedules.

“We have already set most of the schedules, accept for the spring schedules,” Shuler said. “I will do what our district office wants us to do.”

According to Shuler, Richmond Senior High currently spends approximately $30,000 a year for buses for athletic events for its varsity and junior varsity teams. The athletic department spends nearly an additional $30,000 a year for officials.

Now by simply limiting the number of junior varsity games or reducing the number of men’s soccer or women’s tennis matches isn’t going to automatically balance budgets across the county or state.

But it will be a start in the right direction.

For many, the perception is athletics is untouchable because it does bring in money with ticket, concession stand, and memorabilia sales. But in today’s economic climate, colleges and universities are being forced to slash budgets and some are even ending some of its sports programs.

Richmond Senior High athletic department may have to look at its budget and make some difficult decisions. The school’s coaches enjoy playing the best teams in the area and sometimes even the state to judge where their teams stacked up. So instead of traveling to play a school in Greensboro or Raleigh, the Raiders may be forced to play a Fayetteville school instead.

While the money situation is what will drive schools to begin to cut games to the bare minimum, what may be lost in the entire equation is the junior varsity players.

Schools use its junior varsity program like Major League Baseball teams use their farm system - to groom players for the next level.

Members of the Richmond junior varsity football team will run the same type of offensive and defensive schemes as the varsity team. This “training” allows the players to move onto the varsity team without needing time to get adjusted to a new scheme.

“It would hurt because kids would not get as much playing experience,” Shuler said. “Like in football, a full season is 10 games, you take away one or two, then you are taking away from that game experience. And that goes for all the sports - baseball, softball, soccer.”

Ultimately, the decision to cut games will be left to people who crunch numbers for living, but in the long run the statement by the NCHSAA board is the right one if it means all sports will remain on the field.