ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 21, 1996 TAG: 9603210071
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: DUBLIN
SOURCE: CHAD WILLIS STAFF WRITER
It's been said you can't fight City Hall, but Pulaski County High School sophomore Kristin Vaughn is putting up a valiant effort.
The 15-year old student has found herself in the thick of a controversy involving the availability, or lack thereof, of a girls soccer team at the New River Valley's largest high school.
Vaughn, who has been playing soccer in the area's recreational leagues for 11 years and has been a member of the 14-and-under Pulaski Lightning traveling team, contends the administration of Pulaski County High School shattered the dreams of female students when it first announced there would be a team, then appeared to change its mind because it said there wasn't enough startup money.
``In the fall, the school put out a handbook for the students and it had the sports schedules in it,'' Vaughn said. ``Listed with the other spring sports was girls soccer. Games had been scheduled and we were led to believe there was going to be a team.''
For Vaughn, who will be in the academically challenging Governor's School next year, a girls team represented the possibility of earning a partial collegiate scholarship, supplementing any academic aid she might receive.
``You don't get seen as much by college coaches when you play with traveling teams,'' Vaughn said. ``Coaches see more players in high school. A girls team here would be my chance. I was really looking forward to playing this year. A bunch of us had already started running and getting in shape to play. Finding out we weren't going to have a team was difficult on us all, especially for the senior that won't get to play.''
So Vaughn was left with the option that has always been afforded aspiring female soccer players at Pulaski County - to play on the boys soccer team. Vaughn chose not to, citing disappointment and a change in the attitude of the members of the boys team.
``I decided not to play because after everyone felt there was going to be a girls team, the boys team became a `boys-only' team,'' Vaughn said. ``I get along with the boys on the team, but the general attitude had changed to `This is our team - not a girls team.'''
It was at this point Vaughn began to question the decision to nix the girls team. She consulted faculty members, athletic director Ron Kanipe, principal Jim Kelly and members of the county School Board. Each told her the same thing - the money just wasn't there for girls soccer.
``What some people don't understand is the budget for this year was decided on last March,'' Kelly said. ``For there to have been a girls soccer team this year, the proposal would have had to have been made at this time last year.''
The Pulaski County administration did look into the possibility of seeking additional money from the School Board for a girls team when it became apparent the interest was there, but made no formal proposal to the board.
``We looked at some in-house options as far as ways to raise the $6,000 it would take to start a team,'' Kanipe said. ``We had to take a look at the overall athletic program and decide what was best for all the sports. We just couldn't do it in-house. I asked members of the School Board if the money was there. They said no, so I didn't make an official proposal."
Vaughn said she felt the lack of a proposal on Kanipe's part stood in contrast to his statement that ``every option had been tried'' to find the necessary funds.
``He didn't make a proposal to the board and that was wrong,'' Vaughn said. ``Then, once he knew we couldn't have a team, he didn't make an announcement saying so. I found out from some teachers that said they heard rumors about not having the money for a team.
``If we had known there wasn't going to be a team, we could have tried to raise the money ourselves. We had parents that would have helped as well. But because we didn't know, we didn't have a chance to raise the money.''
Kanipe maintains an announcement was made, along with an invitation for the girls to try out for the boys soccer team. Kelly estimated the team had approximately two weeks to raise the money, probably not enough time.
``Some of our best fund-raisers are the cheerleaders, and there are about 50 of them,'' Kelly said. ``For them to raise $6,000 is a good year. There would have been only 20 or so soccer players, and at no time during the year has anyone addressed themselves to me as a member of a soccer booster club.''
Kelly said a proposal is going before the School Board that asks for $6,000 to be set aside for girls soccer and $8,000 for softball, another girls' sport, in the 1996-97 school year. Pulaski County is one of only two schools in the Roanoke Valley District not offering girls soccer and the only one without softball.
For Vaughn and her fellow students, the opportunity to represent Pulaski County as a girls-only team lies at least a year away, depending on how budget deliberations go. Vaughn said the events of the past few weeks have been enough to cast a pessimistic shadow on having a team in '97.
``I hope we have a team next year, but after what happened this time I'm just going to have to wait and see,'' she said. ``We were led to believe that this was the year, then there's no money. Where's the $5 a person from the football games? Why was there a schedule?''
Despite Vaughn's gloomy outlook, Kanipe said the school's administration backs the proposal for both girls soccer and softball in the next school year.
``We want girls soccer and softball as sports here,'' Kanipe said. ``We've requested the money and next year, hopefully, we can have them both. There are a lot of girls here that are interested in both and we would love to be able to provide them.''
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: RAY COX Kristin Vaughn contends the Pulaski County Highby CNBadministration first announced there was going to be a girls soccer
team at the school, then reversed that decision. color