Classes began at most area high schools on Monday, but school responsibilities started a month ago for the largest group of high school football players ever in North Carolina.

Practice began officially on July 30 and less than a month later, many teams had played two games before the first day of class.

When the North Carolina legislature mandated that schools open later this year, the N.C. High School Athletic Association studied its sports calendar but made no changes.

"Almost everybody agrees the season starts too early and lasts too long," said Charlie Adams, NCHSAA executive director.

"Everybody wants it fixed, but they want it left just like it is, too."

The high school football season lasts 17 weeks (including playoffs) because the schools want all the revenue they can get from football.

"We've created this monster," said Clayton football coach Gary Fowler. "The football coaches have done it to ourselves."

A school could compress its regular season by playing 10 games in 10 weeks, forgoing an endowment game and a bye week.

But that's not palatable to most coaches and athletics directors because of the lost revenue.

High school athletics budgets vary greatly, but are estimated to be around $100,000 for Wake County 4-A schools.

The county provides $945 per high school, rents swimming pools, pays coaching supplements and provides some funds for purchasing insurance.

The bulk of a school's athletics budget comes from booster clubs, which operate concession stands and sell merchandise to benefit athletics, and gate receipts, primarily in football.

So schools want to make the most of their five or six home football games.

Most also want to play endowment games in which they split gate receipts with the NCHSAA endowment fund. Interest on the endowment helps pay for playoffs in non-revenue sports and catastrophic insurance for all athletes.

The NCHSAA's share of endowment game receipts and a $1 surcharge on playoff game tickets has helped grow the endowment fund to $7.4 million.

Endowment games have provided more than $4 million to NCHSAA member schools since 1993.

When the NCHSAA proposes playing 11 regular-season games in 11 weeks, the membership then insists it needs the extra week to schedule big-money games.

But if you want to play an endowment game and you want 11 games in 12 weeks, why not shorten the playoffs? Almost no one is suggesting that.

Currently 72 teams in each of the NCHSAA's four classifications -- 256 of 378 schools -- make the playoffs in football.

"That's too many unless you're one of the ones that don't make it," Fowler said.

Making the football playoffs is like found money for most athletic departments, which rarely include playoff money in their projected operating budgets.

Most high schools sell season tickets that cover regular-season games in all sports. Therefore, much of the gate receipts from football games, estimated to be around $5,000 per game at area 4-A schools, comes from visiting fans.

But a school's share of a football playoff game can be $10,000 or more, because everyone -- home and away -- pays.

The money raised during the playoffs can mean the difference in new soccer uniforms next spring or wearing the old ones another year.

If you eliminate the options of shortening the playoffs, dropping endowment games and removing open dates, you end up with this year's schedule.

Nobody likes it, but few people want to change it either.

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