Published 2012-02-28T18:42:00Z”/>

Kjerstin Wood

After 40 years, Butte County’s Special Olympics basketball tournament will not be held at Chico State because of a scheduling conflict that went unnoticed until three weeks before the event.

Randall Stone, area director for Special Olympics Butte County, was notified that Chico State recreational sports had also booked Acker Gym for Sunday, the same day as the basketball tournament, Stone said.

The request for the Northern California Collegiate Volleyball League Regional Tournament to be held in Acker Gym was made on Nov. 2, 2011, and confirmed on Nov. 11, 2011, said Drew Calandrella, vice president for Student Affairs, in an email interview. Stone’s request was made in late November.

This is the first time in many years that Chico State has received the bid to host the volleyball tournament and will be hosting other California State Universities, as well as Universities of California and private schools like Stanford University, Calandrella said.

“This unfortunate error is not emblematic of any retreat by the campus to its commitment to the community,” he said.

Athletes from all over the north state come to participate in the basketball tournament, and they used it as a warm-up for a similar tournament in Redding, Stone said.

Athletes are missing out on the chance to observe other teams and their skills before the next big competition, said Paula Blair, an athlete who has participated in the tournament for 12 years.

“I know it’s a mistake, but it’s really hard,” Blair said. “We count on Chico State to support the Special Olympics.”

If treated as an outside or off-campus group, Special Olympics would have been charged more than $3,000 for use of the gym facilities, Stone said.

Chico State offered Stone a lower price and then free use of the facilities because of the “unfortunate situation” that occurred, Chico State President Paul Zingg said in an email to Stone that the university provided to The Orion.

CSUs must recover all costs of operating and maintaining campus facilities when they are used by an outside group, according to Executive Order 1000 from the CSU Chancellor’s Office.

A piece of the issue is the budget challenges that come from CSU Chancellor Charles Reed’s office, said Rebecca Lytle, chair of the kinesiology department, which partners with Special Olympics for the on-site track meet.

The track meet is directly related to a class, making fee issues irrelevant, Lytle said.

“One of the challenges for the basketball tournament is that it is not reserved for a class,” she said.

This has never been an issue before, but the campus is still sorting out the fee schedule, which “makes perfect sense,” Lytle said.

A simple solution could be partnering the tournament with a class in the kinesiology department, if there is a natural fit, she said. However, the campus and community understand the importance of the event, even if it is not connected to a class. The main issue was not the fees but the double-booking of the facilities.

“It is very disheartening,” Lytle said, “and I know that everyone on this campus is upset about it not being able to occur.”

Three different dates were offered to Stone with waived fees, and Kimberly Scott, director of recreational sports, offered to condense the volleyball tournament to only Shurmer Gym so Acker Gym would be available Sunday, Calandrella said.

That was a possible solution and something Special Olympics was moving forward with, Stone said. He received an email from the university stating that it “just wasn’t going to happen,” Stone said

The accommodations were made because of the “major debacle,” said Anne Ferguson, facilities reservations coordinator in an email Stone provided to The Orion. However, if the event were to return to Chico State next year, Ferguson said it looks like the standard external rate of $3,821 would be charged to Special Olympics.

The facilities charges are part of a new policy, said Maggie Payne, interim dean of the college of communication and education.

“It is really unfortunate,” she said. “We are in a transition time with the new fee policy. This situation was just terrible fallout from that.”

Stone was unable to change the date of the event, which always occurs the first weekend in March because of security concerns and the fact that so many aspects had to be coordinated, he said.

Stone will be looking into other locations, such as those within the Chico Unified School District, for future tournaments, but the Special Olympics track meet will still take place at Chico State, Stone said. This is a long-running problem related to fees and scheduling.

“This was just the most significant blunder,” Stone said.

<hr />

<strong>Kjerstin Wood can be reached at</strong>

<em>[email protected]</em>