The COVID-19 pandemic has taken the world by storm and Roseville High School athletics have been directly impacted by the virus, causing shortages in funding.

Each sports method of fundraising wasn’t prepared for a pandemic, so the programs had to act to keep them afloat.

During the 2020 football season at Roseville, the total attendance at every game was extremely low, with each player only being provided 2 tickets a game. Adam Reinking, the football coach, took note of the situation.

“We had zero generated revenue from things such as ticket sales, snack bar and so on,” Reinking said, “So completely missing one of our main helps for funds posed an issue.”

A 100% decrease in income from an outlet that the football team relied on to help to pay for equipment and maintenance. The Roseville football team’s funding is assisted by the booster club, but because of the lack of attendance, they couldn’t help.

“Not only for football, but for every sport, they weren’t able to generate revenue,” Reinking said

One of the football programs’ usual fundraising methods is the coupon cards. While this did take place, it was required they explore other options.  Reinking started thinking about what he could do to combat the issue at hand.

Luckily for Reinking, the use of technology was able to assist the football team, for a zero contact method of fundraising.

“Last spring we did an email fundraiser where we raised close to twenty-five thousand dollars. This year we did use the tiger cards, but we figured out a way where parents and supporters could pay through Venmo,” Reinking said.

With the tiger cards alone, the football program was able to collect roughly seventeen thousand dollars to assist with the funding. An amount of money that assisted to get the program on track. 

Not only was football affected by the pandemic, but all sports. Corey Fukuman, the golf coach at Roseville high, was also affected financially by the virus.

While the equipment for golf is usually owned by the player, there was still a challenge for the program to deal with.

“Everybody’s budgets have been cut a little bit, but we’ve been able to manage with what they’ve given us.”

The golf program at Roseville doesn’t have admissions to watch the games, taking away an outlet for money before the pandemic was an issue. The usual is parents watching and following from a distance.

“We have to do a bit more fundraising, but it hasn’t been too bad. Luckily we have Sierra View golf course who doesn’t charge us to play there.”

Methods for golf fundraising are different from football, but still are sufficient for golf.

“In past years we’ve done putt-a-thons. The girls team gets donations and grants, but the boys team does not, so we have to do a bit more fundraising.”

While the cutbacks on funding for athletics do pose a challenge, the programs at Roseville High are able to combat these challenges with new methods of fundraising, and being able to work around struggles when they pose a problem.

Lack of funding, while impactful, and affecting every sports program at Roseville High, each program found their own way to work around the struggle and persevere.