EDITORIALS
Save the Games
Undercutting a New York bright spot will deepen quality-of-life gloom
Pay to play. It’s what got the governor of Illinois arrested and what deprived the governor of New Mexico of a Cabinet seat. It should not be what the governor of New York does to the Empire State Games.
Illinois’ Rod Blagojevich is accused of soliciting bribes for, among other things, appointing a new U. S. senator. New Mexico’s Bill Richardson is tainted by a probe into allegations that a big-time contractor bought its way to the front of the line to win construction jobs from that state.
All New York’s David A. Paterson has done, so far, is leave the state’s premier amateur athletic competition out of his proposed 2009-10 state budget. It’s not in the same league, by far, but it is an unfortunate step that will turn what had been one of the best sports festivals of its kind in the nation into a shadow of its former self, shifting its emphasis from athletic excellence to fund raising.
Of course, given the state’s serious budget crunch, a lot of things are being left out of the budget. But the sudden zeroing- out of state support for the Games — from $2.7 million to nothing — is far more than the reduction imposed on other state operations. It is unfair, if not downright mean.
The number of events for the 2009 Games, to be mounted in the Hudson Valley, will be slashed. The Open, Masters and Senior divisions are gone, and the remaining division for high-school aged athletes will carry a $285 participation fee. Overnight, the image of the Games, deserved or not, will shift from one where those involved earned their way in through skill and determination to one where those who can pony up the fees have an advantage over those who cannot.
Just because that’s the way people get into the Halls of Power in Albany doesn’t mean it is the way people should get onto the medals platform at the Empire State Games.
The Games, which are due to be put on in Buffalo in 2010, cannot be left to die this way.
If the Legislature cannot come up with a way to restore state funding to the Games — maybe by cutting its own gold-plated operating budget — then Games organizers must immediately be about the business of raising private funds to support the event in the future.
Corporate sponsorships and individual scholarships could go a long way to fill in the gap, to keep the Games alive and the quality of athletics among the highest. Even though the event is officially named for its founder — The Governor Hugh L. Carey Empire State Games— the former governor and his family and friends might be willing to see the name of a large bank or insurance company replace his if it means his legacy would live on.
New York deserves no less. And, with enough work, it can expect to have it.
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