New district nearly doubles varsity football diesel fuel costs

By Jerrad Lindenmuth/sportsreporter@trcle.com

It’s impossible to precisely quantify the effect Cleburne’s new district will have on its win-loss record over the next two years, but there is at least one area where the impact can be expressed in a concrete number.

The checkbook.

Cleburne’s new district will require Yellow Jacket coaches, athletes, band members and cheerleaders to do nearly twice as much driving as they have done the past two years traveling to play schools in the old District 8-4A, and CISD will have to spend nearly twice as much over the next two years on diesel fuel for the eight buses — the allotment of vehicles the team receives according to CISD community services director Lisa Magers — used to transport the Cleburne contingent to District 16-4A road games compared to if the Yellow Jackets’ district had not been changed.

To get to the stadiums of district opponents for the next two years, Yellow Jacket football players and coaches will have to drive 427.3 miles, compared to the 215.3 miles it took to get from Cleburne High School to District 8-4A football stadiums, according to Google Maps.

The first step in this process was to determine the distance from CHS to the stadiums of each team in both districts. Those numbers are listed below, in miles.

DISTANCE TO DISTRICT ROAD GAMES:

District 8-4A (2006-07)

Aledo - 37.9

Alvarado - 14.7

Crowley - 19.3

Everman - 24.0

Joshua - 8.3

Mineral Wells - 57.2

Stephenville - 53.9

TOTAL: 215.3 miles

District 16-4A (2008-09)

Corsicana - 71.2

Ennis - 56.2

Midlothian - 29.1

Waco - 73.7*

Waco Midway - 83.2

Waco University 73.7*

Waxahachie - 40.2

TOTAL: 427.3 miles

*Both play at Waco ISD Stadium

Other things to note about the new district.

-District 8-4A’s longest drive for the Yellow Jackets, Mineral Wells, would only be the fifth longest in 16-4A, and is within a mile of Ennis, the sixth longest drive in the district.

-Midlothian, the shortest drive in the new district, would have been the fourth longest drive in the old district.

-The difference in one-way driving between the old and new districts is 212 miles, roughly the distance from Cleburne to New Braunfels.

-The 424 additional miles it takes to get to each stadium and back would get you from Cleburne to Wichita, Kansas ... with 38 miles to spare.

For this projection to be reasonably accurate, two more pieces of information were needed.

-What is the gas mileage of the buses used?

Terrence Thomas, president and CEO of Community Bus Services, estimated the mileage rating for school buses is between 8-11 miles per gallon. For this exercise, we’ll put the average mileage rating of CISD buses at 9.5 mpg.

-How much does the diesel gasoline needed to run the buses cost?

According to assistant superintendent of district operations Mike Bailey, the last purchase of diesel made by CISD was May 22 at $4.33 per gallon.

So based on that price, how much more is CISD paying to play in District 16-4A compared to what it’d pay if still in District 8-4A?

Results below are rounded to the nearest thousandth of a gallon and the nearest cent where necessary.

FUEL CONSUMPTION FOR CHS VARSITY FOOTBALL:

Gallons of gas consumed for eight buses in District 8-4A: 362.608

Gallons of gas consumed for eight buses in District 16-4A: 719.664

Difference: 357.056 gallons

Projected total cost of gas for eight buses in District 8-4A: $1,570.09

Projected total cost of gas for eight buses in District 16-4A: $3,116.15

Difference: $1,546.06

The cost of traveling to nondistrict games was not included in this exercise since those opponents change from year to year and are selected by Yellow Jacket coaches, not imposed by the UIL.

A few things to note; Since CISD’s last gas purchase was in May, by the time Cleburne’s first district road game approaches, against Waco Midway on Sept. 26, the cost of diesel to CISD will likely have increased.

Second, these numbers are only for the varsity football team. When you add in the costs of traveling to volleyball, boys and girls basketball, baseball, softball and boys and girls soccer games, at the varsity and subvarsity levels (not to mention the subvarsity football squads) over the next 24 months are added in, the additional cost to CISD will continue to rise.