Congratulations go out to my wife Jannah and her daughter Lauren Cione, who together put on a successful first charity golf fund raiser that raised about $7,000 for the new RADDSports Charity, Inc., a 501(c)(3) registered nonprofit charitable organization. The new charity will provide scholarships to young athletes who couldn’t otherwise afford to participate in the sports programs at the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County.
The golf tournament was held at the recently revamped Lexington Oaks Golf Club on Dec. 6 and was blessed with more than 70 golfers, wonderful auction prizes, a bag lunch and a delicious Italian buffet dinner created and served by Lexington Oaks owner Anass El-Omari, his wife Susana Herrera and the golf club staff.
RADDSports president and CEO Richard Blalock told the golfers about the reason why he and the management of RADDSports wanted to start the nonprofit and Anass gave some pre-tournament instructions.
Several of the tournament’s sponsors, including the Champion Sponsor, the Residence Inn Tampa-Wesley Chapel, Heineken and JJ Taylor provided on-course adult beverages.
What a great day! — Gary Nager; photos by Charmaine George & Morgan Conlin
In 2019, Pasco County hit new records for tourism, but Covid delivered a hit in 2020 that Florida’s Sports Coast director Adam Thomas figured might be tough to overcome.
Turns out that it wasn’t. Not only did the county bounce back from its Covid-plagued 2020 by exceeding last year’s tourism numbers, but it even passed its pre-Covid 2019 numbers as well.
“It was definitely a revival year for tourism for Pasco County,” says Thomas. “We beat our record-breaking historic year of 2019 by 10.6%. It was amazing,”
In Fiscal Year 2021 (which ran from Sept. 2020 to Oct. 2021), visitor spending in Pasco County generated $721.7 million in economic impact to the county, according to Downs & St. Germain Research. That is an increase of 30.7% above FY 2020, and 10.6% above the 2019 numbers. Direct spending in the county was $511.8 million of that total.
Thomas said an increase in marketing, as well as the state’s openness, allowed tourism to flourish here this year.
“Many other states were still not fully operational,” Thomas says of FY 2021. “That allowed our destinations to attract events throughout the year.”
Pasco County Commissioner Mike Moore (left) and Tourism Director Adam Thomas pose with the Florida Sports Foundation trophy won by the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus for Florida’s Best Small Market Venue.
With the doors to Pasco County wide open this year, people didn’t hesitate to rush through. The numbers don’t lie:
• Florida’s Sports Coast attracted 1,358,200 visitors (41.5% higher than last year, and 30.8% higher than FY 2019)
• Visitors generated 1,419,000 room nights in paid accommodations (32.6% higher than last year, and 16.6% higher than FY 2019)
• Spending by visitors supported 9,254 local jobs (36.3% higher than last year, and 17.6% higher than FY 2019)
• Tourism generated $231.6 million in wages and salaries for local jobs (55% higher than FY 2020, and 37.8% higher than FY 2019).
• Every 147 visitors to the county created an additional job.
• Visitors staying locally generated $3.6 million in Tourist Development Tax collections (36.3% higher than last year, and 18.4% higher than FY 2019).
• Visitors in FY 2021 saved every household in Pasco County $385 in state and federal taxes.
And, Thomas says that amateur sports drove those record-setting numbers; primarily, amateur sports played in Wesley Chapel at its trifecta of sports tourism — AdventHealth Center Ice, the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County and Saddlebrook Resort. As far as the county goes, the nearby Sarah Vande Berg (SVB) Tennis Center in Zephyrhills also contributed to Pasco’s big numbers.
“All these record-breaking numbers that we had are basically from our sporting events,” Thomas says.
Following the heightened 2020 Covid concerns, 2021 may have started with a whimper, but is ending with a bang — for example, the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus will host 128 of the best high school girls basketball teams in the state and beyond, as well as 32 boys high school teams, at the Tampa Bay Christmas Invitational beginning tomorrow and running through Jan. 1.
The tournament expects to bring 1,500 coaches and players and 3,000 total spectators for the event, meaning the Sports Campus will be capping its first full year of operation with the equivalent of a slam dunk. “It’s been an awesome year,” says Richard Blalock, the CEO of RADDSports, which operates the Sports Campus in a public-private partnership with the county. “Considering all of the (Covid-related) social issues we encountered, I think it was very successful.”
Crowds at many of the tournaments at Center Ice were the norm in 2021.
Blalock says 2021 has been a challenging year, but one that came with great exposure. In fact, the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus was named Small Market Venue of the Year by the Florida Sports Foundation in November.
“We were fortunate that we’re in a quasi-conservative area where we got support from the local government to be able to operate,” he says. “We just had to figure out what the rules were, come up with protocols and then follow those protocols to be able to operate.”
The Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus hosted a number of large events in 2021. Whether it was current Philadelphia Eagle and Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith preparing for the NFL Draft by working out at the campus, or USA volleyball and USA Gymnastics events, or a myriad of AAU and youth basketball, cheerleading and volleyball tournaments taking place monthly, the new facility was always bustling.
The same goes for Center Ice, which saw more than a million people pass through its doors in FY 2021.
General manager Gordie Zimmermann said his business was up more than 30 percent from 2019. Center Ice hosted an NHL Prospects tournament, burgeoning local adult and youth recreational leagues and a series of hotel-filling tournaments in ice, sled and roller hockey, as well as figure skating.
“It was pretty amazing,” Zimmermann says. “I think Florida handled (Covid) better than anybody, and we have had a lot of people coming here. Plus, hockey is on a growth spurt, and the (back-to-back Stanley Cup champion) Tampa Bay Lightning have certainly helped with that.”
The five-rink facility is one of a kind in the Southeast, and you won’t find many like it in the U.S., Zimmermann says, making it a popular destination for big tournaments.
The biggest sporting event held in Pasco County this year was at Center Ice, according to Thomas — the TORHS (Tournament of Roller Hockey Series) Nationals in June. The tournament runs 8-10 days, had more than 150 teams and generated 2,300 room nights. Thomas says the economic impact to the county of the event was roughly $3 million.
As we head into 2022, could another record-breaking year be in store? Thomas doesn’t see why not.
With the impact created by sports as great as it has been, Thomas and others see only growth.
Wesley Chapel has facilities, like the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus (above), that can host more than 1,000 people over the course of a weekend, providing a boost to the tourism dollars generated in Pasco County. (Photos courtesy of Florida’s Sports Coast)
A recent study commissioned by Florida’s Sports Coast, which was intended to find the gaps in the amateur sports arena, showed that adaptive sports, or sports that are accessible to those who are disabled, is a possible growth area. An aquatics facility is on the radar as well, and private developers have inquired about things like BMX and surf parks, as well as a track & field facility.
Adaptive basketball could be headed to the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, says Blalock. Thomas says the county also is working on the bringing the U.S. Fencing championships to the Sports Campus, in addition to a large Can-Am competition between first responders from Canada and the U.S.
Saddlebrook Resort may host the 2022 American FootGolf League national championships in 2022. The relatively new sport is like golf but is played with feet and a soccer ball instead of clubs and a golf ball.
“We are thinking outside the norm,” Thomas says.
Center Ice will launch the Sunshine Cup this summer, a week-long tournament that will feature teams from the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Europe. The mid-July event is expecting more than 3,000 visitors and would eclipse the TORHS event as the largest tournament hosted by the facility.
“We’ve always considered ourselves to be a player in the sports tourism industry,” says Thomas. “People are starting to notice our success, and they want to be a part of it. We’re excited. We’re an amateur sports hot spot, and we have some great opportunities for growth.”
Janet Kennedy was active in politics, so she was well aware of the great divide between Democrats and Republicans, not only locally, but throughout this country, and was concerned about how quickly that chasm was growing.
But, it wasn’t until the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that Kennedy, a Grand Hampton resident and chair of field organizing for the Hillsborough Democratic Party, felt the full force of how dire the situation had become.
“It was really after Jan. 6,” Kennedy says. “I was glued to the television set that day, as many people were. I guess I was fundamentally shaken that the political discourse in this country had devolved into an attack on the Capitol.”
First, Kennedy assessed her role, as someone who had been heavily involved in partisan politics. It made her feel a little bit guilty about contributing to the divide.
So, she looked for ways to work towards healing that division and founded a local chapter of Braver Angels, a national group that was created in December 2016.
How Braver Angels Got Started
At that time, with passions still high following Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton — and likely in the wake of contentious Thanksgiving dinners between families across the U.S. — the now-national group assembled 10 Trump supporters and 11 Clinton supporters in South Lebanon, Ohio, with one goal: “To see if Americans could still disagree respectfully — and just maybe, find common ground.”
The group’s conclusion was yes, and the Braver Angels organization has continued to grow ever since, with Alliances (or chapters) in 48 states numbering more than 50,000 members.
Kennedy’s goal is to start a Tampa Bay Alliance. She has started that long process with a few Zoom meetings, and says she has about 45 people — most of them from New Tampa — interested.
Unfortunately, only a few are Republicans, likely not enough if any headway is going to be made at bridging any divides.
“It’s going to be a slow build,” Kennedy admits. “I think people are worn out and exhausted and fearful that, if I go to a meeting like this, someone will try to change my mind or talk me out of my opinion or I’ll be made to feel stupid. But, that’s not what we’re about. We’re here to listen.”
Kennedy has organized workshops and a debate so far in three meetings, with much of the conversations focused on not letting politics come between family members.
She says she took some of the lessons from those meetings and used them to have a discussion with her cousin, who is on the opposite side of the abortion debate.
It went surprisingly well, she says.
“We were able to reach an agreement on some points,” Kennedy says, “and I understand better where she is coming from and she understands a bit better where I’m coming from.”
Kennedy would like it to work like that on other issues that divide the two ends of the political spectrum. She is looking for volunteers to help her get the local Alliance of Braver Angels moving forward.
Although the political landscape, and the chance of both sides working together, seems fairly bleak right now, Kennedy says she would like to think she can make a difference.
“I just know I need to try,” she says.
For more information, visit BraverAngels.org, or to help with the local Alliance, email Janet Kennedy at thejanetkennedy@gmail.com.
Linda Adum (far left) and her daughter Amie Adum MacLauchlan stand next to the nearly 5,200 pounds of food donated at Chiles Elementary. (Photo courtey of Amie Adum MacLauchlan).
The holidays had always been a special time for New Tampa’s Ken Adum. A long-time educator and member of St. James United Methodist Church in Tampa Palms, Adum had devoted much of the holiday season for nearly two decades to playing an integral role in his church’s annual holiday food drive, which was held in partnership with Metropolitan Ministries.
The effort was Adum’s passion. He helped rally local schools when it came to organizing food drives, and also served as the St. James tent coordinator the past few years. He was often busy in the weeks before Thanksgiving hooking the trailer containing all of the donated goods to his Ford F-150 truck and delivering them every few days to the Metropolitan Ministries main tent on N. Rome Ave.
“He loved it,” says his daughter Allison Adum Shaer. “He always looked forward to it.”
In April, Ken, a former teacher, three-time Principal of the Year at Gaither and administrator in a 37-year career with Hillsborough County Public Schools, passed away following a battle with cancer at the age of 74.
Metropolitan Ministries, whose founder Morris Hintzman also was one of the founding pastors of St. James, decided to honor Adum by naming the northern Hillsborough County food drive after him: The Ken Adum Memorial Food & Toy Drive for Metropolitan Ministries.
“He played such a big part in it,” says Dineen Paris who, along with her husband Leonard, are the tent coordinators for the drive this year.
First, A Little History…
In 2003, the Parises, along with Ken and his wife Linda and Joann and Bob Lee, met with Metropolitan Ministries, wanting to expand St. James’ mission of giving back to the community. They formed a partnership that has helped feed thousands of families in the two decades since.
Ken Adum
This year, a record 27,000 pounds of food was collected for Metropolitan Ministries in November at St. James. Ken’s daughters, Amie Adum MacLauchlan and Allison, raised roughly a quarter of that in a friendly competition between the schools where they teach. Allison is a fifth-grade math teacher at Lutz Prep, while Amie is an audiologist at Chiles Elementary.
Allison’s fifth-grade class collected 1,600 pounds of food, while Amie (with help from fifth grade teacher Shannon Simpkins) enlisted the teachers in every grade at Chiles and raised a whopping 5,190 pounds.
“This year was definitely more meaningful,” Amie says. “Education and Metropolitan Ministries were two of my Dad’s passions, so knowing that he was smiling down on us during the whole fall season was wonderful. I really wanted to get our school involved to see if I could inspire everyone to do it in honor of my dad.”
The daughters definitely picked up where Dad left off. It was Adum who added the component of competition between area schools in 2017, hoping to put a charge into the drive and impact the younger generation.
“He loved a good friendly competition,” Allison says.
Amie was amazed by the response at Chiles. Day by day, little by little, the donations began rolling in. The school had never collected more than 1,000 pounds worth of food to donate, but that number was quickly eclipsed this year, as large blue barrels in the front office at Chiles were filled to overflowing.
That amount quickly surged 2,000 lbs.….then 3,000…and more, until the blue barrels were buried by cans and boxes of food.
“First, it was the blue barrels, then you could see that more of the floor was disappearing,” Amie says. “Then, you couldn’t see the rug anymore.”
By the time the food drive ended, in less than two weeks, the families at Chiles had brought in more than two-and-a-half tons of food.
When Amie brought Linda to the school on Nov. 19 to see what Ken had inspired, Linda grew emotional.
“I wanted her to see how much they had brought in in honor of Dad,” Amie says. “It was awe-inspiring. Then, she helped us pack it all up so we could take it to the donation tent. It took us an hour and 40 minutes to pack it up, bag it and load the cars.”
The family also decided to start a new tradition. While everyone had pitched in over the years working the tent at St. James at various times during the drive, this year, the entire Adum family gathered this year to work the tent together — unloading donations, weighing food, separating it into HOPE boxes (containing a variety of items for one full Thanksgiving feast) — followed by a family lunch.
It was a special moment (see photo on the cover) to remember the man who helped start it all.
“Losing Ken was a great loss, but to see everyone’s enthusiasm this year, it wasn’t a sad thing, it was a joyful thing,” Dineen says. “It was wonderful to watch them, their whole family (working) together. Ken would have liked it very much.”
You can still donate food or toys by visiting St. James United Methodist Church at 16202 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., 10 a.m.-3 p.m. daily through Thursday, December 23.
The New Tampa Performing Arts Center has gone vertical and Hillsborough County could choose someone to manage it as soon as March. The NTPAC is expected to open in fall 2022. (Photo: Charmaine George)
The New Tampa Performing Arts Center (NTPAC) has finally gone vertical, and one of the final questions remaining before it opens sometime in the fall of 2022 is who will run the facility.
Ken Hagan, the Hillsborough County Commissioner for District 2, which includes New Tampa, said that decision could come by March 2022, now that the deadline for interested parties to respond to the county’s request for proposals (RFP) has passed.
The RFP was issued on Nov. 10 and expired Dec. 3, or after we went to press with this issue. The county is looking a performing arts resident company to manage all aspects of the NTPAC for 10 years, with renewal options for another 10 years, subject to annual satisfactory performance evaluations.
One of the groups that was expected to bid to manage the 20,000-sq.-ft. center is Florida Cultural Group, which was originally selected by the county staff. But, during a vote about the PAC’s funding in May, four commissioners — Mariella Smith, Kimberly Overman, Gwen Myers and Harry Cohen — voiced concerns about the organization, primarily because of its location in Manatee County.
Coomissioner Smith and Kemp, who were the dissenters in a 5-2 vote to approve the funding for the PAC, wanted a local group to run it. They also questioned the $1.4 million in county subsidies over the next four years requested by Florida Cultural Group.
The commissioners then unanimously voted to open up the facility’s management with an RFP.
Both commissioners specifically mentioned the New Tampa Players (NTP), a 20-year-old organization that was started by residents of Hunter’s Green and Tampa Palms. A large part of the effort to build the NTPAC, which is under construction off Bruce B. Downs Blvd. across from the entrance to the Hunter’s Green development, was to deliver a home for the NTP, which has staged performances at numerous locations, but none the group could call its own.
“The NTP are the driving force behind my championing the New Tampa Performing Arts Center,” Hagan says. “They are the reason. It will be their home and they are an essential partner in this being a successful and sustainable facility for generations to come.”
But, will NTPalso get to manage it? While producing artistic director Nora Paine declined comment, it is believed that NTP planned to submit a proposal. The troupe has held meetings with those involved in New Tampa’s performing arts scene in order to bolster its standing by forming a larger local and more inclusive group that includes dance and ballet.
Paine did say that NTP has not been involved in many large fund-raising campaigns. That is likely to be a major requirement for any organization that is selected to manage the new center.
About The Florida Cultural Group
Formerly known as The Manatee Players, Inc., which was created in 1947, the Florida Cultural Group is an umbrella organization that operates the Manatee Performing Arts Center and the Manatee Players community theater. It has a long track record marked by successful fundraising.
“When this issue came in front of us before, our staff was very enthusiastic about that group because of their fundraising track record,” Comm. Hagan said. “It’s paramount that we have local representation driving this partnership, but I don’t think you can ignore the importance of fundraising throughout this process.”
Hagan says he will let the county staff make the determination as to who should manage the NTPAC, but no matter who is selected, he would like to see a Board formed, and “it’s critically important that there’s a majority of New Tampa representation on that Board.”
