That's not the case for lower-level teams in the Los Angeles City Section, where playoffs are being eliminated starting next school year. The City Section is also moving its freshman-sophomore basketball schedules to the winter to consolidate travel costs.
The measures are expected to save $197,500, section Commissioner Barbara Fiege said.
Bellflower St. John Bosco will add a sport -- boys' lacrosse -- but the school is offsetting rising transportation costs by charging each student $100 to cover all field-trip costs. Previously, athletes paid $50 per sport while other students were assessed separately.
The school will also ask coaches to work with multiple teams.
"A varsity football coach might also work at the JV level as well," St. John Bosco Principal Patrick Lee said. "We're trying to consolidate and not have as many coaching slots as we've had as in the past."
At Mira Costa, the reassignment of athletic director duties is only one of sweeping changes approved by the district's board of trustees, who voted to eliminate all of the school's coaching stipends and its athletic trainer beginning next school year.
To pay for the $180,000 in coaching stipends and more than $60,000 for a trainer, plus other costs, the school's booster clubs have joined forces with the Manhattan Beach Athletic Foundation to ask parents for a donation of $325 per athlete for the first sport he or she participates in and $200 for each additional sport.
Mira Costa was not the first high school in the Southland to ask a vice principal to also serve as athletic director.
Glenn Martinez pulled the double duty starting last fall at Covina Charter Oak after former Athletic Director Joey Strycula replaced a retiring vice principal in a cost-cutting move.
"It's made for some long days and some last-second running around because something didn't get done right or there was an oversight or a late bus," said Martinez, who also oversees attendance, discipline and special education.
"You need to be very, very organized."
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ben.bolch@latimes.com
