Girls volleyball will be the only high school sport in the Meridian School District with four separate teams beginning this fall.

The reprieve the sport received from the budget cuts that will hammer Meridian scholastic athletics in 2011-12 might not matter in a few years.

“We won’t have enough girls coming up from the middle school to fill all our teams in the next two to three years,” said Eagle High volleyball coach Paul Schwager, who has freshman, sophomore, junior varsity and varsity squads.

The Meridian School District will hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Mountain View High to discuss its budget proposal, which features $14.76 million in overall cuts.

The budget, which is expected to be adopted by the school board next week, likely will slash more than 2,000 roster spots from teams at seven middle schools and five high schools — cuts that will hit seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders the hardest.

By dropping sports like freshman baseball and seventh-grade girls basketball, the district is able to eliminate more than 320 stipends for coaches and activities advisers. The value of stipends for middle school coaches was reduced, too.

Students also must pay a $100 fee per sport, making middle school athletics self-supported and slicing the district’s portion of high school athletics in half, to $800,000.

“You know we’re affecting the students’ opportunity to participate, but we’re also affecting our staff in being able to coach and influence these kids,” said Scott Stuart, the district athletic director and a former football coach. “It’s very difficult. We’re having to make some decisions based on finances that we may see the repercussions of three to five years down the road.”

Stuart, coaches, parents and even an Eagle High baseball player expressed one common concern with the lost opportunities to participate in athletics.

How will students use that free time?

“There’s trouble to be had out there,” said Kellen Kinder, who was a senior on Eagle’s state championship baseball team but also participated in football, swimming and track. “Sports are a good way to have some fun and also stay in shape. … Sports really kept me going, so I’m really thankful they were available for me.”

Added Ron Manu, who has two boys in Meridian schools and a third who just graduated: “Those idle minds. Hopefully, they’re readers.”

The school district plans to fill some of the void in the middle schools with intramural programs developed in a partnership with the YMCA. Private options also are possible, such as club teams.

“Some of the coaches are talking about getting together and putting something together on their own just to keep those kids involved,” said Emery Roy, the longtime Centennial High girls basketball coach.

The varsity coaches could be most affected by what’s going to happen in the middle schools. With boys basketball, girls basketball and volleyball reduced to one eighth-grade team per school, students will get fewer chances to sample sports.

That also means the players who make the eighth-grade team are the ones most likely to lead the varsity team four years later.

“You’re picking your team right there at the seventh- and eighth-grade level pretty much,” Roy said. “That’s going to discourage those other kids from going on in the future.”

Said Stuart: “Middle school sports has been about participation and about the opportunity to try out sports that maybe you never have before. That’s a concern that we have.”

The “pay for play” model could be problematic, too.

Parents who pay tend to think their kids should play, coaches say, and not all good athletes have an extra $100 in their family budget. Athletes also often need to help with program fundraising.

“That’s going to really put a hardship on a lot of struggling families, especially in this economy,” said Marci Mills, mother of district football standouts Jake, Mitch and Dallas Burroughs.

High school football was spared cuts because the district was worried about the safety aspects of forcing freshmen to play on junior varsity football teams, Stuart said. Girls volleyball was spared because the district wanted to leave a girls sport whole for gender-equity reasons, he said.

Nearly every sport will be affected in some way, though — through reduced coaching and fewer playing opportunities.

“It’s a shame. It’s really a shame,” said Frank Wright, the Eagle High baseball coach. “I suppose, though, if we’re cutting teachers, we really shouldn’t be having athletics.”