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Show 18 Vernal Express Wednesday, August 25, 1993 Utes scrimmage in preparation of Friday's home opener practice hits taking place. by Eric Pye Sports Writer "After a week of practicing against 'dummies' and only going 12 to 34 speed, the kids arc usually usual-ly ready for full contact," Head The Uintah high school football team held their annual RedWhite scrimmage last Friday afternoon on Coach Curg Belcher stated. Coach the practice field with anything but Belcher went on to explain that the , - '". ,1". ,, 'j''f' ' I ;; , ' 4 , - , ' ' " " " '. I f M , " A r i .. JR. v OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR Mike Peterson clarifies pass route tor receiver just prior to the Red team's first score. nlao-ows sftage 5C mme tiiriaDs odd ipirepairaDODD fioir Gireemi Goveir ir s, . , r- -rx;- yf.- fijthmm I w,T UTE HARRIER squad lines up at prior to beginning of 5K Fun Run and time trials right give them room. Sttate of ttlhe yimDOirsi, or ds ft Due ire a cDuooce? by Eric Pye Sports Writer For those who have not heard yet, the high school has instituted a 'pay for play' policy this year to make up for the across the board activity cuts which have literally wiped out the budgets of every sport and activity ac-tivity at the school. The cost this year is $50 for a 'major sport and $35 for a 'minor' sport or activity. A limit has been set where no student will pay over $100 a year or family $200. Some families will end up paying $200 for their children to participate in high school activities this year if they happen to have 2 or more students in grades 9-12. The fees participants pay will become be-come the budgets of each program. For example; if 100 athletes make the football team and each pays his $50 fee, the budget for football will be $5,000. If 10 girls make the girl's tennis team, their budget will be $350. If a student plays in football in the fall, basketball in the winter and goes out for baseball in the spring, his fees for baseball will be payed out of a general fund set up for fee waivers and situations like hishers since the maximum anyone has to pay is $100 per individual or $200 per family. I'm not really sure what research was used or how those fig- starting line while the more (DIhauJilcBip EBcdsx ure were arrived upon, but the powers pow-ers that be must have reasoned that $100 and $200 were good round figures and more than enough to cover the actual expenses of the programs. The general fund will also be used to pay for any individual who is eligible eli-gible for a fee waiver. The idea being be-ing that everyone must have an equal opportunity to participate regardless re-gardless of their financial situation since the constitution guarantees a 'free education for all. I've got to admit that sometimes I'm a little slow to see what is plain to others, but in my mind, the entire 'pay for play' philosophy is a little random and doesn't follow any kind of sound thinking process. First, the budgets are all completely complete-ly cut (around $20,000) supposedly because the community voted down a mill levy increase last fall. scrimmage serves several valuable purposes. "The coaching staff uses the scrimmage as a guideline to what we need to work on in practice. It also gives players an opportunity to show the coaches what they can do in a semi-game situation. Usually at this early stage in the season, the defense is more developed devel-oped than the offense simply because be-cause there is less to learn, but after viewing the scrimmage, Coach Belcher felt the opposite is true. "We have a somewhat inexperienced inexperi-enced defense," Belcher explained. "There are several kids who have played, but some are in new positions posi-tions and we have added a wrinkle or two which they are still trying to get comfortable with." "The offense on the other hand," Belcher continued, "is well in front of where it has been in years past." Coach Belcher attributes the offensive offen-sive progress to hard work over the summer including several football camps throughout the state which many of his players attended. "The offensive and defensive lines have the potential to develop into the best I have seen here at Uintah." 'experienced' runners on the At the same time, approximately $22,000 was pulled out of the Uintah Recreation Association budget bud-get to defray other educational costs. Here is where it gets interesting. By the time the general fund pays for all the fee waivers and individualfamilies individu-alfamilies that exceed their limits, and all the time spent by school employees em-ployees on the paper work figuring it all out and making sure that all the programs get their due money is averaged in, either a new position is going to be needed to handle the paper pa-per work or someone is going to realize re-alize that it was less expensive and simple to use the 'old' system with budgets in place. I seem to vaguely remember something about a mill levy in the distant past that would have raised taxes an average of about $17 per each $70,000 property per year to help fund our education system including in-cluding activiu'es. Is it just me, or does that option appear to be a much more organized, orga-nized, simple, efficient and fair process pro-cess to everyone involved? Even those people who had property values val-ues in the $500,000 range wouldn't have to pay a $200 increase! But if they did, they would be in a much better position to pay it without personal per-sonal loss or suffering compared to some of the families that will end up paying either $200 or $100 and might not own any property at all. UTE QUARTERBACK Glendon Lamb, known to his teammates as The Lapoint Lazer' fires When asked to pick out the strongest aspect , of the offense, coach Belcher responded without any hesitauon, "the backs," meaning mean-ing the four deep running backs he has to shuttle into the backfield. Jared Stevenson, Rhett Deets and Paul Hawkes all have legitimate 4.5-4.6 forties while Joey Batty is almost impossible to get any kind of See Football page 20 by Eric Pye Sports Writer The Uintah High School cross country team held their first time trials in conjunction with the Uintah Recreation Association Fun Run last Saturday morning and put on a racing clinic for the 'old timers.' Head Coach Marlon Stagg arranged ar-ranged with Recreation Director Shane McAffee to have both his boys and girls team compete in the 5K run along with community members to "give them a taste of competing against somebody other than each other." The result was a near sweep of the men's event as team members took nine of the top ten places. Only ex-Ute ex-Ute Colt Mortenson broke the block as he nipped current Ute Jorden Hatch at the finish line for 3rd place overall. Girl team members swept their event as team members took the top four positions with four runners run-ners competing. Even though the times were a little lit-tle slower than expected, Coach Stagg was pleased with the results. "For our first competition, the team ran consistently and together. We had several kids race right down to the wire, with times very close, which is exactly what you like to see from a team standpoint Compared to our team at this point last year, we are much stronger overall and running together." The times reflected coach Stagg's enthusiastic observations. Senior Brian Stagg finished first overall with a time of 17:19. Mike Mathis and Jorden Hatch finished 2-3 on the team with times of 17:42 and 17:44. Jeremy Tollman was next with an 18:07 finish followed closely close-ly by Ryan Dart in fifth place with a 18: 10 time. Jon Padigimus was right behind at 18:11. That is six runners within one minute of each other. Taking it one step further, the top three were with-' in 25 seconds while the next three finished within four seconds of each other. In high school team competition, seven runners race with the top five times counting towards a team score. Places are added up with the lowest total finishing first. That is why coach Stagg is excited about this year's group. "We don't have one outstanding runner, but we do have eight or nine runners who are capable of defeating defeat-ing each other on any given day." Shay Muir nipped Dustin Pye at the finish line for seventh place with a time of 19:28 while Pye recorded a 19:30. James Hunting finished ninth with a 20:05 followed by Tory Mathis at 20:47, Daniel Hunting -21:16, Dylan Feltch-21:22, Matt Squires-21:56, Jerry Barlow-22:28, See Harriers page 19 , off a bullet to Friday's scrimmage. . :l,jA k -ll'sfi ; ' ' V' ' J ( - N? V ; - --jffjf , , " j V 7g ' 5 tm o o 7 Y - ff NEW WRESTLING Coach Ed Johnson gives it his best with past state championship trophies looking on! UHS names Johnson new wrestling coach by Eric Pye Sports Writer Uintah High School announced last week that former head wrestling and football coach, Ed Johnson, would assume the responsibilities respon-sibilities of head wrestling coach for the 1993-'94 season. The new coach, who replaces Bill Maresh, will assume the title of Interim Head Coach for one year giving the school the time it needs to find a qualified replacement. Several candidates were interviewed inter-viewed after Maresh announced towards to-wards the end of summer that he had accepted another position closer to home in Minnesota, but the school was unable to come to terms with any of the prospects, leaving the high profile (and high pressure) position open as the school year was about to begin. The school could have done worse. As the head of the wrestling program pro-gram from 1982 through 1989, Coach Johnson brought three consecutive con-secutive state championships home and a second place finish his last year in 1989. Johnson was a state champion wrestler himself at Uintah and went on to compete for the University of Utah on a full ride scholarship. "I am very excited to have the opportunity op-portunity to coach again," Johnson stated. "This could be one of the mZmmm "T ; 3SSHBS "Tiim ."3 awi TRIALS CHAMPION Brian Stagg kicks home on rain dampened, morning streets with teammates Mathis and Hatch close behind. streaking receiver during last most competitive years ever for the state championship with both Delta and Wasatch in the picture." Delta is the perennial 2A state champion who has moved up to 3A with the new realignment while Wasatch is the defending 3A state champion with a host of experienced, experi-enced, talented athletes returning this year. Coach Johnson will emphasize, team unity, and sees that aspect as one of his biggest challenges this year. Johnson will emphasize discipline, disci-pline, conditioning and individual skills in bringing the team together. "Once we get the kids on the same wavelength, we will teach a wide variety of techniques, moves and skills and then help each individual indi-vidual develop his own style," Johnson explained. Coach Johnson has already gone on record as stating the team's goal . is to win the state championship as a team. He also feels part of his new responsibilities include maintaining good relationships with the community commu-nity through open communications and active support of the junior wrestling programs in the Vernal area. Johnson has stated he would like to use Steve Scott, Kevin Glider and Chuck Henry as assistants in the program although nothing has been confirmed at this time. |