OAKLAND — With a huge budget deficit looming, the Oakland Unified School District has unleashed a first wave of drastic reductions by cutting funds for 10 after-school sports programs.

As a result, about 500 students enrolled in such sports as wrestling, swimming, bowling, tennis and golf may be out of luck unless money is found outside of the school district to pay for them.

Skyline High School wrestling coach Dennis Spencer, who has been coaching wrestling for seven years, said his team is devastated at the news that their sport will be among the victims of the district’s multi-million dollar budget crisis.

“I’ve got three girls who have wrestled since their freshman year, and now they’re going to be told they’re done,” Spencer said in an interview Friday. “There’s a bunch of seniors who aren’t getting their senior year. They’ve worked so hard for this, some of them to be champions, and they’re not going to have the opportunity.”

The pain felt by Spencer’s team may be experienced by more students, as the district seeks to cut about $30 million next year to remain fiscally solvent. It is considering laying off hundreds of staff, including teachers, during the 2019-20 school year.

Years of spending beyond its means, among other things, put the district deep in the red. Oakland Unified is still paying back its debt to the state, which took over the schools 15 years ago after the district had badly misspent its money. The school board cut about $9 million mid-year from its 2017-18 budget, and in December it voted to ax $11.2 million from the 2018-19 budget. It ended up cutting an additional $2.2 million after learning there would be less one-time state funds coming than anticipated.

District spokesman John Sasaki said administrators of the Oakland Athletic League — the district’s sports program — decided within the past week to cut 10 sports after being directed by the school board to reduce its $1.6 million annual budget by $500,000.

The other sports being eliminated include bowling, golf, girls lacrosse, badminton and boys volleyball.

The 500 students enrolled in those sports last year make up about 20 percent of the total number of student athletes in the district, Sasaki said. Administrators chose those sports because they had the fewest participants, he added.

Football, basketball, soccer and other sports will not be touched, at least not now. No teacher or staff member will lose their job due to the cuts, according to the district.

Sasaki said the decision to cut sports was not easy for Oakland Athletic League officials.

“This is something that nobody here in OUSD wants to do. We know very well the value of sports in many of our students’ lives,” Sasaki said.

He said the sports can be saved this year if the district receives $500,000 in donations. Officials are looking toward tech companies as possible donors.

“We’re vocally calling on leaders around the Bay Area, industry around the Bay Area, to step up and support our kids,” Sasaki said.

Spencer said he thinks cutting those sports will leave struggling students in the lurch. Though it is rare for his wrestlers to get scholarships to college, they are required to keep a minimum 2.0 GPA to participate. That requirement teaches them discipline and pushes them to do better in school, he added.

“What happens to them is that bare-minimum eligibility forces them to do better, and they end up not riding the bare minimum,” Spencer said. “From athletics, they learn commitment and consistency.”

High school wrestlers from Oakland and other urban areas are guaranteed a spot at the state championships under a “longstanding California tradition,” Spencer said. Cutting the program will result in that spot being taken away, he said. Even if the district reintroduces wrestling, Spencer said, that guaranteed spot at the state championship would no longer be available.