The most important three days in the history of SF State athletics are a little over 10 days away, and $18 is basically what separates the 11 different teams known as the SF State Gators from extinction.

Far be it from anyone to tell someone else how to spend his or her hard-earned money, but as we all know $18 will not get one very far these days.

I could go through a laundry list of things that we deem essential that cost $18 or more. I could simply mention “campus parking garage,” “tank of gas,” and “movie theater,” and we would all be on the same page.

Most of us would spend that $18 in a week to avoid a ticket in the campus parking garage, to make sure we do not run out of gas for our cars, and to see that two-and-one-half hour movie that we have wanted to see for so long.

But, when students head to the polls around campus from March 14 to 16 to vote on the Athletics/Intramurals Fee Referendum, they will be asked to decide whether $18 and subsequent minor increases in the fee (increases of no more than six dollars a year) over the next four years is too much to keep the athletics program and Intramurals at SF State.

There should never be a price tag assigned to keeping something so pivotal to a school like its athletics program. If this was a visa commercial, SF State athletics would be in the catch phrase at the end right before “priceless.”

SF State Gator teams will likely never be on ESPN, but do we want to be known as the school that did not want to put up a few extra bucks to save sports? Do we want to be known as the only school in the entire CSU system without sports?

Let those questions roll around in your head for a few seconds. Then, consider the finding by the Task Force on the Future of Student Athletics at SF State that said 91 percent of students agreed that participating in intercollegiate sports should be an option for students with appropriate athletic ability.

Many of these students came here on
sports'scholarships and to be active in sports. While there are only about 250 student athletes, they have been helped by these scholarships. How right is it to strip these students of the biggest reason they came to this school?

Then, there is the matter of school pride and enthusiasm that sports bring to any campus, whether it is Duke or ESPN-less SF State.

I saw all of this firsthand one night last October.

It was at the annual Midnight Madness celebration where the opening of the basketball season was celebrated. As a high school student, I had hated going to rallies for teams.

But, I had an unbelievably and surprisingly awesome time. It hit me that night as all the players rallied in the packed gym. The audience roared its approval for those Gator players that there was no better way to promote school spirit than letting athletes psych up a crowd at a game or a rally.

The Task Force found that Gator athletes help promote school spirit, and they will get no argument from me.

Also, according to the Task Force, 78 percent of SF State students support the continuance of the athletics program.

Obviously, this group sees the importance of athletics. For some students, SF State is more than books and tests and sitting in a classroom all day.

“Students should exercise their minds, but school should also be about exercising their whole bodies too,” SF State Intramural/Recreational Sports Director Paula Moran said in an interview last semester.

The department and its athletes need your help now. After all, does it feel good knowing that a “no” vote would terminate a program that has gone on since 1929?

That’s a little bit over 75 years of history and tradition. How good would it feel to know that the student body currently attending SF State did not want to spend a few bucks to keep the program going and everything that goes along with it?

It’s amazing to think that after 75 years, saving the athletics program comes down to individual votes that amount, in dollars, to a night at the movies without food or drink.