Half of elite basketball players not from Columbus

The Columbus Parks and Recreation Department runs a youth basketball program where more than half of the 152 players come from outside the city, some from as far away as Mobile, Ala., and Lakeland, Ga., a small town on the other side of Valdosta.

City money is used to transport these teams and their coaches to tournaments across Georgia, the Southeast and the nation. An internal audit of the Parks and Recreation Department discovered that the city has spent between $100,000 and $150,000 per year since 2007 on the Innovative Sports Program, which runs travel teams in basketball, track and field and boxing.

There is no way to know the exact amount spent on the teams and travel because the Innovative Sports Program is not a separate budget item in the city budget. It is rolled under the larger Recreation Services Division.

But it is clear looking at the rosters and the travel budgets that large numbers of out-of-county children are benefiting from the program. At least 50 players — about a third of those in the program — travel an hour or more each way to practice and play with the Blazers basketball teams, and at least 25 of those travel more than two hours each way.

That’s inappropriate, said one longtime high school coach and a member of the city’s crime prevention commission.

“Any time a citizen pays taxes, our kids and our citizens should be the ones who get the benefits, not kids from other places,” said former Carver High football coach and athletic director Wallace Davis.

Parks and Recreation Director Tony Adams and members of his staff have been instructed to refer all questions about Innovative Sports or the audit to City Manager Isaiah Hugley’s office.

Meanwhile, Adams has been told by his supervisor to stay in Columbus this weekend, while his elite 17-and-under team travels to a Nike-sponsored tournament in Los Angeles.

Joe Foster, a 20-year volunteer for the Parks and Recreation Department, is head coach of the 16-and-under girls team that has one Columbus player on its 12-player roster.

He defended the practice of using talented out-of-town players, but said, “I certainly understand the citizens’ concern.”

Foster explained it this way.

“People from throughout the region seek out this program,” Foster said.

Foster compared it to renting a tuxedo, pointing out that people from across the region who want formal wear come to Columbus.

“You go where the product is,” Foster said. “People seek this program.”

Mayor Jim Wetherington has expressed concerns about the Blazers program as details have come out through the audit and reporting by the Ledger-Enquirer.

“This is local taxpayer money, part of that money being put into this basketball program,” Wetherington said. “I just don’t think that’s right.”

Michael Woods agrees with the mayor.

Woods is president of and a coach for the Georgia Jaguars, an Amateur Athletic Union travel program based in Columbus, fielding six boys teams and four girls basketball teams.

Woods coached with the Blazers for several years before starting his own program in 2003. The Jaguars pay $300 a year to piggyback on the AAU 501(c)3 nonprofit status.

He said more than 95 percent of the roughly 150 boys and girls in his program are from Columbus and this year he has had to expand his teams to pick up Columbus players being cut by the Blazers.

“I have never done boys programs at the level we are now,” Woods said. “The reason is so many local kids have gotten cut from the Blazers program. Kids that did not make the Blazers travel teams get out because so many kids from out of town are making the travel teams.”

The rosters seem to back that up, showing more Columbus players on the younger teams and fewer Columbus players on the high school-aged teams.

The Jaguars could have had four high school boys teams this spring and summer, Woods said.

About a half dozen programs in Columbus field travel girls and boys basketball teams that play in spring and summer tournaments. The Blazers are the only ones with access to city facilities and city resources, Woods said.

The Jaguars are not allowed to practice in city gyms, Woods said.

The Blazers regularly hold practices in Comer Auditorium and other city facilities. The Jaguars practice at local churches and schools — “wherever we can get a gym,” Woods said.

“We can’t use the Parks and Recreation facilities, and we tried several years ago,” Woods said. “I went to Isaiah Hugley and he said if we were not a part of the Innovative Sports Program, we could not use the facilities.”

That is wrong, Davis said.

“The kids in this community are entitled to use the recreation facilities,” Davis said. “I don’t care if you are rich or poor, if you live in Columbus, you should be able to use the Columbus recreational facilities. It is wrong not to be able to use the facilities just because you are not with ‘my’ group.”

The Georgia Blazers basketball program has 152 players on 13 boys and girls teams, according to rosters obtained by the Ledger-Enquirer through the Georgia Open Records Act.

The team in the program with the highest profile, the 17-and-under team, is sponsored by Nike and has only one Columbus player on its 13-person roster.

Three of the players come from Lakeland, Ga., a three-hour drive southeast of Columbus.

Two other players on this team, currently playing in the Nike-sponsored event in Los Angeles this weekend, are from the Florida panhandle, a more than two-hour drive from Columbus.

The team is coached by Adams, the parks and recreation director, and has been instructed by Deputy City Manager Lisa Goodwin not to make the trip.

Financial details of the Nike sponsorship, which the team has had since 2006, have not been made available. The Ledger-Enquirer had requested a copy of the contract from the city and was informed that the Nike deal for the Columbus Parks and Recreation team is not with the city, but instead with East Marietta Basketball Inc., a nonprofit organization that has refused the city’s request to produce the contract.

East Marietta Basketball said the Nike sponsorship provided uniforms, shoes and funding for Nike-sponsored events.

The Jaguars top girls team is sponsored by shoe company Fila, Woods said.

“We get gear — uniforms, shoes and bags,” Woods said. “That’s it. Girls are different from the boys. We don’t get any money.”

Another difference is the way the teams travel.

“We rent vans or if we are taking a number of teams to a tournament, we will rent a bus,” Woods said.

The travel is paid for by parents and through donations, Woods said.

The Blazers’ travel teams use city vans and drivers who are city employees, according to records obtained by the Ledger-Enquirer through the Georgia Open Records Act.

In addition to taking the teams to the tournaments across the state and southeast, Parks and Recreation vans are used to pick up out-of-town players and bring them to Columbus for weekend practices and games, Woods said.

“I have seen that,” he said.

Davis would like to see a full investigation into the Blazers basketball program.

“I don’t want this swept under the rug,” Davis said. “This is something that needs to be thrown out in the open. I am not against Tony Adams — I am against them not using our tax money to make Columbus better.”

This story was originally published May 29, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Half of elite basketball players not from Columbus."