The Smoky Hill Football team is not getting the funding they need. The team does a lot of fundraising but that does not raise that much money for things. They need money for food, equipment, and travel buses. Most of the players on the team complain about the helmets and pads in the equipment room and we always wonder why we don’t receive good stuff as other schools like Cherry Creek, Arapahoe, Grandview, and Cherokee Trail.

While these other schools are around the same area and are in the same league as the Smoky Hill Buffaloes they are getting treated better than Smoky and we wonder why that is. Looking at the issues the team has with funding are the fundraising events. The Smoky Hill Football team boosters do a good job at picking our fundraising events and treat the team well. But thinking about what events they do for fundraising?

The biggest fundraiser for the team is called buff cards. These cards do the most for the team because of how they can be used. The cards cost $25 in previous years but just in this year 2022, the cards have gone up $5. So each of the players gets twenty-five cards and they have to sell as much as they can. They can be bought by cash, check, and card so people out of the state can buy them too. They are a great way to fundraise but in 2022 we raised $5,000 for the season and that is with all of our fundraising and what our boosters did for Smoky. The other notable fundraiser was Fresh Fenders Car Wash, Chipotle, and Jason’s Deli.

The reason Smoky needs fundraising is because of equipment. Equipment is very important for football cause of protection. According to Nick Dashcel from Oregon live many of the state’s high schools in Class 6A, 5A and 4A have three teams, some with cumulative rosters of more than one hundred players. That means a helmet, pads, uniform, socks, shoes, practice gear, and a bag for every player. Not to mention all of the other necessities of running a football program, like blocking sleds and footballs. From 160 helmets and shoulder pads that price tags exceeding $200 each, to some $4,000 for the footballs it takes to get through a season, the tab reached nearly $200,000.

Even football helmets are the main thing we need every year. On September 2, on a Friday Smoky took on Rock Canyon and one of the player’s helmets came off 4 times during plays. There is no reason a helmet comes off that much. That is not safe for the player. The Smoky helmets are some old helmets and have a bunch of scratches and paint coming off making Smoky look like they have not had anything new. Football helmets are the most expensive equipment. Helmets range up to $400-500 and for one hundred players. That’s $50,000 for helmets. This is just for helmets too.

Smoky is getting left out again. Smoky is not getting treated like every other school although there are some schools that experience this as well. What we need to do as a community and a school is to do better on our fundraising choices and care about our sports and we need to get everyone involved in fundraising, not just the parents, coaches, and players. This is a Smoky effort.