grams are most times denied. During the meetings, the coach and athletic director review spreadsheets with the program’s ordering history to determine what needs to be addressed and what can wait another year. “I tell them to tell me what they need and I’ll get what I can,” Quatromoni says. “After six years I have a pretty good handle on who needs what, and the big things that are coming to get us now are the uniform cycles. “Those meetings where we talk about what we’re going to buy are not very long meetings because they know there’s just not a whole lot I can do.” That’s why Quatromoni maintains a wish list, which can be a great tool for athletic directors to stay current
I tell some schools, ‘You can come play me but I can’t come to play you’ ...
“ ”
on the department’s top priorities. He also allows pro- grams to buy “a toy” if they make a splash with their individual fundraising efforts. For example, the base- ball team raised a significant amount of money for the department, so he gave a little back to the program by allowing them to purchase a new bat. It’s been a great motivational tactic and it lets programs know the athletic director takes their requests seriously. “We’ve had some successful individual team fundrais- ers,” Quatromoni says. “If they raise $2,000 for me I’m going to spend $500 for something that’s necessary for their sport and then put the rest into the general fund.”
Searching For Savings It’s difficult these days to justify higher taxes or con- vince the school board to allocate more money to ath- letics. That’s where athletic directors must focus their efforts on finding savings within the current budget. Opportunities exist throughout the department, but along with your staff you must determine what’s sus- tainable and what’s not. Areas that deserve close scruti- ny include transportation, staff, apparel and equipment. Athletic directors likely have reviewed all of those and, in some cases, squeezed as much as they can out of their current resources. Quatromoni says transporta- tion and payroll are the biggest expenses in his budget, and he’s made adjustments where possible. So far, his department has only had to cut a couple of assistant coaches, and in some cases teams were able to find al- ternative travel accommodations for student-athletes so they can cut expenses. “Transportation is just one of those expenses where we are bombed,” Quatromoni says. “But we must get them there. We’ve done game reductions and I’m cer- tainly mindful of where we go. I tell some schools, ‘you
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can come play me but I can’t come to play you.’” One of the most significant changes was in gameday support. He says volunteers now make up 99 percent of the crew that works the ticket booths, concession stands and other gameday duties. That’s resulted in a savings of about $80,000 over the last four years. During the preseason parent-coach meetings each
year, Quatromoni secures a list of anyone willing to perform certain functions on gameday. He groups those names onto email lists and he then sends them the team’s schedules to determine everyone’s availability. A lot of the gameday duties are simple, but he ad-
mits the scorer’s table at a basketball game is a stressful place, regardless of your experience. “That’s been a big saver,” Quatromoni says of the parent volunteers. “It’s been time consuming for me to manage it, but we fill those spots. Parents volunteer and people are starting to get comfortable. I spend time training people in freshmen and junior varsity games to get them ready for the varsity sports.”
Another step Hull High School was forced to take was reassigning gate ticket revenue to the general fund, helping the athletic department better handle its numer- ous expenses. Prior to the program’s extreme cuts, a
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