Three Oregon high schools have received grants to boost their athletics programs, thanks to COSA partner California Casualty's Thomas R. Brown Athletics Grant initiative. They are among 85 high schools in 38 states receiving a total of $101,500 for struggling athletics programs.

• McKay High School in Salem is described as the poorest school in the state – but also one with the most academic growth.  Athletics budgets have been slashed 60 percent in four years. Fundraising is difficult when more than 90 percent of the student body is eligible for free or reduced cost lunches. Athletic Director and Assistant Principal Gordon Crowston will use the Thomas R. Brown Athletics Grant to help get a turf field in place to benefit football, soccer, baseball, softball and track and field teams. “All the other schools in Salem have a turf field. We do not,” he said.
• It’s hard to imagine that Grant Union Junior & Senior High School’s track and field team has been making do with uniforms that are between 10 and 20 years old, and those are only the tops from four different uniforms. Students must provide their own shorts to compete. All of the team’s fundraising results have gone toward replacing the track that was washed away in a 2011 flood. “New, matching uniforms would raise pride in our school by encouraging participation, respect, integrity in who we are as individuals and as a team,” said head coach Sonna Smith. Their grant will help purchase 25 uniforms.
• Athletics have taken a beating in the PPS school district. While the golf program has lost all funding, and budgets were eliminated for freshmen coaches in every sport, the boys and girls soccer program at Jefferson High School in Portland is working hard to rebuild. They’ve been utilizing rusted-out, non-portable goals. The Thomas R. Brown Athletics Grant will help purchase new, portable goals.

Shrinking state education budgets, pressure on schools to focus efforts on academics, and diminishing funds for athletics inspired California Casualty Chairman and CEO Beau Brown to establish the grant program in honor of his father – Chairman Emeritus Tom Brown, a lifelong athlete and sportsman.  For more information about the Thomas R. Brown Athletics Grant program, visit www.CalCasAthleticsGrant.com.