Like any fan of the Empire State Games, I let out a gold-medal caliber “whoaaa” when I saw the cuts the state has announced for this year’s statewide Olympic-style event.

The cuts are so vicious, it’s making me write something I really don’t want to write: If that’s the Games the state wants to hold, they shouldn’t hold them at all.

A scholastic-only statewide competition held among athletes who pay $285 each to spend four days in the Mid-Hudson Valley? That’s Poughkeepsie and the surrounding area, if you’re wondering. Passing the buck to participants changes the whole dynamic of the Games. Pay to play? Those Empire Games aren’t the Empire Games I’ve covered the last 15 years.

Proposing that athletes pay for the Empire Games experience couldn’t have worse timing. If young athletes want to pay to compete against the very best, they do that through AAU basketball or club competition in whatever sport they are in.

The truth is, due to that sort of specialization, the Games have lost a bit of their luster as a premier athletic event over the last decade or so. But still, the Games remained a top overall event.

The reasons student-athletes (not to mention adults) participate in the Games go well beyond the athletic competition. It’s about walking into opening ceremonies with thousands of other athletes (would there even be an opening ceremony this year?), making friendships with people from your own region and beyond and visiting a different area of the state.

The Games are bigger than the competition for the host regions as well. It’s about an economic impact that exceeds $10 million and a chance to show off your college campuses to hundreds of prospective students. But if you gut the Games, you also gut that impact, and the value of hosting the Games goes down significantly. Host regions are charged with an immense amount of fundraising and volunteer organizing that will be stunted by the paring down of the Games.

Hopefully some sort of funding can be restored. State funding for the Games went from $2.7 million to zero. The Games can certainly be streamlined — a scholastic-only competition isn’t the worst thing. But making athletes pay? No way. How about cutting funding in half? Since when does Albany work this quickly and decisively?

The state’s announcement included the caveat that for the 2010 Games, scheduled to be held in Buffalo, that there is “hope of reinstating the suspended competitions, as well as revisiting the new fee structure.”

But we know how that goes. Once something is cut from a budget, good luck getting it back.

Around the gyms

Prepare to see sneakers on the basketball court this week — on the coaches.

As part of the New York State Basketball Coaches of New York’s effort to raise money through Coaches vs. Cancer, coaches throughout the state will be wearing sneakers during games. Various schools will collecting donations for the Coaches vs. Cancer effort (checks can be made out to the American Cancer Society) during home games as well. It’s the third year of what is an excellent campaign — over $100,000 was raised last year by the BCANY state-wide.

I’m definitely looking forward to Saturday’s MLK Classic. For the first time the site will be ECC-City’s Flickinger Center, which is a nice-sized venue for high school hoops. The day gets started with McKinley taking on Sweet Home at 10:30 a. m. — I’ve hemmed and hawed between both teams for the No. 10 spot in my large school poll all season (up until this week). Lackawanna might earn some more small school votes after playing St. Joe’s at noon. Two top programs that should be in the thick of their league races meet when Canisius battles Riverside at 2:30 p. m. The event concludes with an outstanding top-five large school battle of East against Nichols at 4 p. m. Nichols’ lone loss is to Niagara Falls while East has only lost to defending Section V champion East of Rochester.

Live chat Wednesday at 10

Our first live chat of 2009 will take place in prime time Wednesday night at 10 p. m. We’ll discuss anything and everything in Western New York high school sports, including that night’s action.

As long as everyone has their homework done by then, of course.