With help of a Hall of Fame coach, John, Jake raise money to save Yelm sports programs

UPDATE: 

The fundraising goal of $50,000 that was set to save the Yelm Community Schools sports programs was met and exceeded Tuesday afternoon.

They hit that number shortly after former Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, a five-time national champion and a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, appeared on “The John Curley and Jake Skorheim Show” on KIRO Newsradio Tuesday afternoon to talk about the importance of youth sports.

Remarkably, the donations blew past that $50,000 goal between 3 and 4 p.m. Tuesday. The current total raised as of 4 p.m. Tuesday is $64,558.

“The community really answered the call,” Yelm High School football coach Jason Ronquillo said on “The John and Jake Show” Tuesday after hearing about meeting the $50,000 goal.

Ronquillo said they will turn around and donate the money to the Yelm school district to get the programs up and running and save any leftover money for next year because this may need to be done all over again.

During the process, Curley explained sponsor Wilcox Family Farms played a key role in helping Yelm get the money they needed

“Wilcox was instrumental in helping Yelm meeting their goal,” John said.

ORIGINAL STORY:

Last week, Yelm Community Schools announced major cuts for sports programs in order to deal with a projected budget shortfall that exceeds more than $8 million.

The district is cutting all high school and middle school C-teams. Those are what’s known as development squads, with mostly freshmen feeding into the JV level, KIRO 7 explained last week.

“I’m talking like one-third of my program is going to be gone and cut and like, and your initial reactions, like, getting punched in the gut,” Yelm High School football coach Jason Ronquillo said last week in an interview on “The John Curley and Jake Skorheim Show” on KIRO Newsradio.

The coach explained to John and Jake what it means to play football in that area and how high the expectations are for student-athletes.

“It’s a right of passage,” Ronquillo said. “These kids are they’ve been playing sports, a lot of them all their lives. And a lot of them, their parents played here, their grandparents may have played here. It’s kind of an expectation in the family household.”

Ronquillo explained that the elimination of those C-teams would impact dozens of potential football players.

“You’re talking about (about 40) kids,” he said. “(I’ve got to) tell 40 some families that they aren’t gonna play in two weeks. Yeah, it’s a tough conversation.”

Adding “it can destroy a program,” Ronquillo explained it is important to get these student-athletes into training while they’re young and before the school year begins.

“(You’ve) got to start maturing that young body in the weight room all summer long, all off-season,” coach said. “And we go, I’m not saying we go football year-round, but we lift year round. We work out year round. And to say that a third of our programs cut, that’s killer.”

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Even getting athletes to the games will be difficult as the district also cut funding for transportation.

“Basically, if you sign up for athletics and you make the team, that family is responsible for getting their athletes to and from those athletic events,” Ronquillo said to KIRO 7.

Ronquillo and another parent came with a game plan as co-founders of regional youth sports organization Total Sports Development (TSD). They established a fundraiser and posted it on the TSD website to raise money to help save the district’s C-team sports. Those interested in making a donation can head to the TSD website and give whatever amount of money they can to help.

The original goal was to raise $50,000 by Wednesday. Remarkably, the donations blew past that $50,000 goal between 3 and 4 p.m. Wednesday. The current total raised as of 4 p.m. Wednesday is $64,558.

The fundraiser hit that number shortly after former Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, a five-time national champion, appeared on “The John and Jake Show” Wednesday afternoon.

Contributing: Frank Sumrall, MyNorthwest

Steve Coogan is the lead editor of MyNorthwest. You can read more of his stories here. Follow Steve on X, or email him here.