While high gas prices are affecting everything from grocery costs to family vacations, they have yet to strike Louisiana high school athletics.

At least, not yet.

“Right now, nobody has really started experiencing anything,” Louisiana High School Athletic Association commissioner Kenny Henderson said. “At the end of last year, it hit us, but not the extent it will this year.

File Photo

“We are going to do a sports season study, which will take into consideration the amount of games being played.”

That would somewhat mimic what the state of Mississippi is doing. There, the number of varsity contests that may be scheduled was reduced by 10 percent for all sports except football.

In Tennessee, more drastic measures were taken. The state’s athletic association reduced the number of classifications to three and will only go back to a six-classification league for the playoffs.

Yet, Alabama and Georgia are holding out on making any specific changes. Louisiana, too, is in that group.

Henderson said, ultimately, the only games that must be played are district games. So, in a six-team district, schools could potentially have a five-game regular season in football. In basketball, it would be a 10-game season.

“They control their schedule,” Henderson said. “Depending on how large their district is, that comes into play.”

Orleans Parish athletics director Ron Gearing doesn’t like Mississippi’s idea of reducing the number of games. Whatever the cost of traveling, he said it’s worth it.

“That would be counter-productive,” Gearing said. “This shouldn’t impact student athletes and how we do it.”

He added, “We can’t stop our normal function because of gas prices. We just have to endure them.”

Orleans Parish schools pay Laidlaw $75 per bus for local contests and more for trips outside the region. Gearing said he foresees a situation where Laidlaw passes along the higher gas costs onto the schools.

With that in mind, the future might hold more local games and fewer out of state or out of region contests.

“They might try to get a game on the Northshore,” he said. “Limit the distance to travel.”

LHSAA

Louisiana High School Athletic Association commissioner Kenny Henderson said for now, high gas costs haven't changed the way the organization is going about its business.

But in St. John the Baptist Parish, the idea of cutting out sports altogether to save money, as some New York and California schools have done, doesn’t go over nearly as well.

“If we had to stop buses from running, the juvenile delinquency rate would go up,” East St. John head football coach and athletics director Larry Dauterive said.

In that parish, the school system took steps a year ago to combat rising gas prices, Dauterive said. JV and freshman games are played on the same nights.

However, cutting back games, even 10 percent, wouldn’t necessarily help the bottom line, he said.

“I don’t know how much of a cost-cutting measure that would be,” Dauterive said, adding that for a 30-game basketball season, that would mean a loss of only three games. “I don’t think anybody wants to hit the panic button right now.”

Nevertheless, Henderson sees it as a possibility.

“There could be a cut-back in the number of games played during the season, which in turn may help quality,” he said. “But it’s a fine balancing act. You need to have so many home games to help fund the programs.”

He does see one possibility that could come sooner rather than later.

“You would not see as many out-of-state games,” Henderson said. “If I were a principal of a school that would be one of the first things I’d look at.”