The Harbor High football team got a bad start to the new season—even before their first game started.
The Harbor High football team got a bad start to the new season—even before their first game started. Someone stole $25,000 in donations that the players and their families had spent the summer collecting. According to head coach Travis Rebbert, nothing is left of the money. Rebbert recently joined the school in an effort to turn the team around. The team finished second-to-last last season.
The theft was especially painful because of severe budget cuts to high school athletic programs. Students worked hard all summer to compensate for the loss in state funding, running car washes and selling tickets to their games. The money, which included $10,000 in cash, was kept in Rebbert’s office at Jim Leonard’s Mortgage Connection. Some people have questioned why Rebbert did not follow the school’s deposit policy for the donations, but other local coaches came to his side, saying that it is difficult to get the money to the right people when schools are not in session.
Rebbert and the team are currently contacting people who wrote checks to the team to see if they will write new ones. Read more at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
