Pay to play needs a rethink

To The Eagle:

If you're an athlete at most schools, including mine, you have to pay $60 per sport you want to participate in. If you're a three sport athlete, then that means you will be paying $180 a year. Times that by four and that means you will have to pay $720 for your whole high school career.

I believe that athletes should not have to pay to play, because you're not guaranteed as much playing time as the others. For example, this year our varsity boys basketball team playing in around 20 games and the junior varsity players who paid the same amount to play only played in three games.

A lot of athletes feel that they shouldn't have to pay to play a sport, because they also have to buy other things for the sport they want to play, such as shoes, cleats, mitts, and lots of others.

A solution to this could be maybe if you're a three sport athlete, you could get a discount on the third sport or the team could raise money for athletes to play or even lower the price to play to $30.

I want everyone to see that athletes shouldn't have to pay to play a sport, because without these athletes there wouldn't be fans that come to pay to watch them play and that the athletes bring in a lot of money for the school.

John Chambers

Cathlamet