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By Jeff Keeling
Johnson City Press
MILLIGAN COLLEGE – It’s become a lucrative rite of early March: hundreds of college athletes descend on Johnson City, accompanied by coaches, trainers and well-wishers, for the NAIA indoor track and field championships.
Last year, those “heads in beds” and hungry mouths pumped more than $1 million into the local economy, and the event’s total estimated economic impact exceeded $3 million. East Tennessee State University’s Mountain States Health Alliance Athletics Center, formerly known as the Mini Dome, (Milligan College is the host school) will be the site of the competition for the 10th straight year March 4-6.
“It’s huge room nights for the hotels,” Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Brenda Whitson said. “March is still a very soft time for tourism, because we don’t really kick into gear until the May time frame. It’s a good way before the NASCAR race to pump some revenue into the coffers that we wouldn’t normally get.”
When Milligan College acted as the host school for the first time in 2001, it’s unlikely anyone from Milligan, the local Convention and Visitors Bureau staff or ETSU expected more than a three-year run. They were happy to get 86 teams and more than $1.6 million in total impact, though, and apparently the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics found something it liked about the Milligan-Johnson City combination, because it’s now extended the option on what was a three-year agreement seven times.
So as the event heads into its 10th year here, and is set to surpass $7 million in total direct impact and $20 million in overall impact, keeping it here has become a point of pride for people like Milligan President Don Jeanes and Whitson.
“We are very pleased to host this tournament for 10 years straight,” Jeanes said. “It’s wonderful to see these collegiate athletes compete and it’s great to see what it does for our region, by bringing over 3,000 visitors here each year. This is truly a partnership of us, the Chamber and East Tennessee State University.”
Whitson chalks up the staying power to the reception teams are given here.
“I think the relationship we have built with NAIA comes from us truly embracing their championships,” she said. “If they were in a Tier 1 city, they would be just another event in town, but the community has embraced this and given it the status that’s due to a national championship.”
For this year’s 10th anniversary, she said, the event partners are trying to keep it special for the teams that come in from across the nation. What has been a tabloid section in the Johnson City Press highlighting the championships will be a glossy magazine, for instance, and Milligan will host an opening awards ceremony for the first time. The school has also developed a tournament Web site, www.milliganbuffs.com/naianationals that is up and running.
“We don’t take it for granted, because we know that at any time in this competitive world of sports business somebody that has an indoor dome can take it away from us,” Whitson said.
From Milligan and the CVB to legions of Chamber of Commerce volunteers and ETSU’s willingness to make the dome available, Whitson said pulling off the tournament satisfactorily year after year is no easy feat.
Its success, though, has her wheels turning as Johnson City builds a new high school football stadium around what was already a serviceable track and field complex at the Liberty Bell complex. That track hadn’t had sufficient bleacher seating for the CVB to even consider hosting outdoor track events, but that’s about to change.
“Our team (led by director of sports development Karen Hubbs) is looking at opportunities through NAIA and other sporting events that would allow us to use those facilities at bid opportunities we were shut out of before.”
Photo by Tony Duncan