[aggiefan]

Thanks for the reply. I was able to find a work-around (make it work) by looking at the code for vbBookie...i figured they were adding something in there. With that said, here's code that works (maybe not efficient, but a starting point for somebody in the same position I was).

$pledgetotals=$db->query_read("SELECT SUM(donation_amount) pledges FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "donations where donation_sport='$football'");
$totalpledges = $db->fetch_array($pledgetotals);
$finalamount=$totalpledges[pledges];

PRINT "$finalamount" shows the correct sum, so that's about all I needed to be functional here. I may need to expand off this, but it's a start.