By TONY TAGLAVORE
To start the new year, the Shreveport-Bossier Journal is publishing a series of stories this week on Shreveport’s new mayor, Tom Arceneaux. Today, the SBJ focuses on the importance the mayor places on local sports.
Mayor Tom Arceneaux believes Shreveport is a sports town.
However, his definition and your definition may be different.
“It’s a participatory sports town, in my view,” the mayor told the Shreveport-Bossier Journal shortly before he took office last week. “Not as much a spectator sports town. There are a lot of people who play softball or who play in basketball leagues.
“There is a tremendous amount of youth sports that people participate in. Kids are involved in so many things. The poor parents, they’re just worn out from doing all of that. I think it’s the participation that’s important to them, and trying to help mold their children through athletics.”
So, if your definition of a sports town is a place where you can see professional, exhibition football or basketball games, attracting those events is not on the mayor’s priority list.
“Those things do not dollar out, typically,” he said. “Professional sports are not what puts — as they say in the tourism business — heads on beds. Youth sports, bass tournaments — a lot of people are interested in those kinds of things. And those put heads on beds.”
In other words, parents and grandparents travel to see their children and grandchildren compete. That means they spend money — gas, food, lodging — which means the city gets more tax revenue.
But if your definition of a sports town is having more organizations which offer affordable chances for your child or grandchild to play at well-maintained facilities, Mayor Arceneaux hopes to be your kind of guy.
“I think with youth sports, we need to make sure there are better opportunities for less-affluent students, as well as affluent students,” he said. “I think the city needs to get back in the youth sports business in some way. Not necessarily, but it might be, in SPAR (Shreveport Public Assembly and Recreation) leagues.”
The mayor wants to provide opportunities to young people — not just athletic opportunities.
“Not every child is going to be athletically gifted,” said Arceneaux. “As a result, you may have kids that might be musically gifted, or they might be creative. They might be involved in the arts, or they might be involved in theatre. We need to make sure those opportunities are available to as many of our young people as possible — to give them alternative activities.”
You can’t talk to the Shreveport mayor about Shreveport sports without bringing up the Fair Grounds Field situation. Or as Mayor Arceneaux pointed out, “there are two Fair Grounds Field situations.”
The first is the partly demolished former home of the Shreveport Captains minor-league baseball team.
Under the previous administration, the city committed to spend close to $600,000 to not only tear down the facility but remove the thousands of bats which had taken up residence.
Before demolition started, the vacant, unkempt stadium was an eyesore along Interstate 20. The sore has become infected in the months since demolition started, then stopped. A local group which wants to save the stadium went to court and won a temporary restraining order, claiming left-behind bat droppings are a public health concern.
“If we’re not going to tear it down, there needs to be somebody who can step up,” the mayor said. “They need to provide for all of the maintenance and expenses — and not with a city subsidy. They also need to put up a bond or other assurance that if what they plan to do doesn’t work, we can go ahead and tear it down. And they need to do it very, very, very, very, very, very shortly.”
Mayor Arceneaux succinctly explained why he doesn’t want the city to spend money on Fair Grounds Field: “The reason I don’t want a subsidy is because that will take away from youth activities.”
“It’s time for somebody to fish or cut bait,” the mayor said, sounding like he won’t be in the boat very long.
The second Fair Grounds Field issue is the previous administration’s consideration of a proposal to build a new, multi-use stadium — surrounded by restaurants and other attractions — on an unused part of the fairgrounds.
REV Entertainment, which brings in non-baseball revenue-related events to the Texas Rangers’ stadium in Arlington, has pitched the plan.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s really a very broad idea at this stage,” the mayor said. “I met with the Rangers people and they are super-nice, and they’re great sales people. They had about a five-slide PowerPoint, four of which were about the Rangers. One was a schematic of what (the Shreveport project) could be. Well, that’s not a concept. That’s a brainstorm.”
The mayor is firm in that the city won’t be contributing any money to the endeavor.
“We’re not going to (write a check), because we don’t have a check to write,” he said.
The Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl falls between professional and youth sports — although some argue college football has become a professional game. Nevertheless, Mayor Arceneaux sees the country’s 11th-oldest bowl as beneficial to Shreveport.
“I think the exposure for the city is just as important as the tourist dollars,” he said. “I think the Independence Bowl Foundation does such a good job with hospitality, that teams leave here feeling ‘This is a special place. These people care about us.’ (The Foundation) has that reputation. It’s well-earned.”
While Mayor Arceneaux is a sports fan, he’s a bigger fan of children — whether they play sports or not.
“I just think we have a responsibility to make this world as good as we possibly can for the next generation,” he said. “That’s the obligation of fathers, whether it’s biological fathers or city fathers. That’s our obligation. That’s why we were put here. It’s generational. Personally, I think that’s the way the Lord intended it.”
Contact Tony at SBJTonyT@gmail.com
Tomorrow, in the final part of the SBJ’s series on Mayor Arceneaux, Tony Taglavore writes about his conversation with the mayor — and if the mayor can really make a difference.