State of youth sports facilities in Hamilton County discussed

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- This summer, many families will be hitting the diamond for baseball and softball tournaments.

As the competition rages on the field, some local leaders wonder if Hamilton County isn being competitive off of it.

Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp said, “For this to be known as one of America’s better mid-sized cities, one of the areas where we are really deficient in the Chattanooga area and Hamilton County, we are making progress but still deficient, at youth sports facilities.”

Mayor Wamp argued that the Chattanooga area does not have a top-tier multi sports venue that is attractive to travel ball tournaments.

His office wants to put $500,000 into this year’s budget for a committee to study how the county should go about improving itself as a youth sports destination.

He said, “Hamilton County and Chattanooga is perfectly positioned to be one of America’s great sports towns. We are not, despite its downsides we are at the convergence of three interstates, that’s got to be one of its upsides that we would be one of the most logical  places in America to dominate in youth sports and that would be a good thing for our kids and tourism.”

This doesn’t mean that there already aren’t youth sports facilities here in Hamilton County.

For example here in East Ridge is Camp Jordan Park, which have 13 baseball and softball diamonds along with 14 soccer fields.

Back in his State of the County Address, Mayor Wamp said the county and the city of East Ridge were working together to see how they could possibly upgrade Camp Jordan into a top tier venue.

Commissioner David Sharpe however says the Commission should be careful before approving any expansion.

He said, “If we’re going to fund a project here and a project there, we should be careful and not piecemeal a solution.”

 However, others, like Commissioner Gene-O Shipley say our area is missing out on big opportunities available at regional sites.

One example he provided is the Sand Mountain Park and Amphitheater in Albertville, Alabama, which has several high end diamonds along with a six thousand seat amphitheater in a rural community of approximately 20,000 residents.

He said, “They had 76 travel ball teams show up to their first tournament of the season, 45 teams that were local. It created over two million dollars in economic impact.”