AAU DIVING NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

Written by: John Deem

Need for extra funding to put on dive competition opens new avenue for corporate sponsorship.

The AAU Diving National Championship isn't the biggest — or even the most prestigious — competition to splash down at Huntersville Family Fitness and Aquatics Center, but it's likely to be one of the most important events in HFFA's 11-year history.

Not because the meet, which runs through July 30, is expected to bring more than 400 competitors, coaches, families and fans to the Lake Norman area or because those visitors are expected to pump more than one-half million dollars into the local economy.
 

AAU DivingNationalChampionshipsSchedule of events Day 2 — Thursday, July 26 – 1 Meter 12, 13 Girls – 3 Meter 12, 13 Boys – 1 Meter 9-Under Girls – 3 Meter 10, 11 Girls – Platform 11-Under Boys – 1 Meter 13-Under Girls Synchro – 3 Meter 13-Under Boys Synchro Day 3 — Friday, July 27 – 1 Meter 16, 17, 18, 19+ Boys – 3 Meter 16, 17, 18, 19+ Girls – Platform 14, 15 Girls – 3 Meter 14, 15 Boys – 1 Meter 16-19+ Boys Synchro – 3 Meter 14-15 Boys Synchro Day 4 — Saturday, July 28 – 1 Meter 14, 15 Girls – 3 Meter 9-Under Boys – 3 Meter 9-Under Girls – 1 Meter 10, 11 Girls – 1 Meter 10, 11 Boys – Platform 12, 13 Girls and Boys – 1 Meter 14-15 Girls Synchro – 3 Meter 16-19+ Girls Synchro Day 5 — Sunday, July 29 – 1 Meter 16, 17, 18, 19+ Girls – 3 Meter 14, 15 Girls – 1 Meter 16-19+ Girls Synchro – 3 Meter 14-15 Girls Synchro – Platform 14-15 and 16-19+ Boys Day 6 — Monday, July 30 – 1 Meter 14, 15 Boys – 3 Meter 16, 17, 18, 19+ Boys – Platform 16-19+ Girls – 1 Meter 14-15 Boys Synchro – 3 Meter 16-19+ Boys Synchro Ticket info – VIP daily seating: $10 – Daily adult tickets: $6 – Daily youth tickets (under 16): $4 – All event adult pass: $20 – All event youth pass: $15 Seatiing is limited. Click Here for Tickets!

Those people and their money will come and go, but the event itself has become the lynchpin for a new approach in funding facility needs at HFFA.

In exchange for its agreement to bring the championships to HFFA this year and at least one more time in the next four years, the AAU required that HFFA add new diving boards and make other improvements to the facility. The Town of Huntersville, which owns HFFA, was unprepared to pay for those improvements, so HFFA's executive director, Dee Jetton, looked elsewhere for the money. She ultimately found a willing partner in Presbyterian Hospital Huntersville, which agreed in May to give HFFA the $65,000 it needed to make the facility AAU ready.

But Jetton and the hospital weren't done. Last month, Jetton and Presbyterian Hospital Huntersville President Tanya Blackmon came before the Huntersville Town Board to announce that the hospital would follow that up with annual donations of $38,000 from 2013 through 2017 in exchange for several sponsorship considerations.

But Jetton is quick to add that more than $500,000 in improvements still need to be funded,even after the Presbyterian donations. And, Jetton has made it clear that she'll continue to look for outside sources for those funds.

"I hope it will set the standard and someone will step forward with another $250,000," Jetton says of the Presbyterian partnership.

Such collaborations, Jetton adds, are a key first step to funding the expansion that Jetton says is necessary to handle future membership growth. The 88,000-square-foot complex, which features three swimming pools, a full-court gymnasium, a fitness center, a group exercise studio and children's areas, handles all the activities it can schedule. But after more than a decade of use, HFFA is bursting at the seams and is showing its age.

Meanwhile, infusions of hotel-motel and prepared food taxes, which must go toward tourism-related expenses, have covered the funding deficits HFFA has experienced in each of its years of operation. However, HFFA actually is breaking even operationally. It's the remaining debt on the original construction of the facility that now is pushing HFFA into the red.

In the budget year that ended June 30, the payments on that debt topped $300,000. All of the nearly $314,000 in hotel-motel and prepared food taxes shifted to HFFA went toward the debt. That represented less than one-fourth of the entire $1.3 million in hotel-motel and prepared food taxes collected for Huntersville.

Still, lean finances have meant tough choices for HFFA, including putting off maintenance and replacements as big as a new HVAC system and as small as shower heads. If it stays on schedule, the town won't pay off the HFFA debt until 2020, which means about $300,000 a year in debt service will have to be part of what is now a $3.3 million annual budget.

With the needs of an aging facility and the demand for new space merging to form a perfect fiscal storm, Jetton will continue looking to the private sector to help balance immediate needs with her long-range goal of expanding HFFA to about 120,000 square feet.

That means satisfying HFFA's 8,500 current members while creating the opportunity to reach more — all while continuing to make the facility attractive to diving and swimming organizations shopping for event venues in an increasingly competitive marketplace. It's those events that bring the people who stay in the hotels and motels, and eat in the restaurants that generate the hotel-motel and prepared food taxes that, in part, help fund the HFFA.

"We already have divers that have checked in that have three generations of family members in tow," Jetton said Tuesday of this week's event.

For more information about AAU Diving, visit www.aaudiving.org.