Hilton Head should capitalize on wider array of sporting events

Recently GoTriSports and the Island Recreation Center staged a kids’ triathlon. This untimed event allowed children to experience the fun of swimming, biking and running. In an age of growing inactivity, obesity, and widespread diabetes, I applaud the effort to encourage one of the fastest growing children’s sports in the United States.

As we develop a vision for the future, we should utilize Hilton Head Island’s existing strengths to support local businesses, increase our tax base, and build community. With gated communities and suburban-style development, community locally is developed through church, school and athletics — not the built environment.

Despite this, there is still great vitality and potential to build on some of the island’s successes: world-class tennis instruction, and championship tennis, soccer, swimming and cross country teams, for example. Many of these sports have growing participation rates across many different age groups. We need to capitalize on this.

As the island looks to regain its status as a world-class resort destination, participation rates, growth trends and demographics should be integral in determining where resources should be spent. Sporting events have less impact on the environment, great economic potential, and require less capital than other alternatives.

Hilton Head could easily support longer distance triathlons, soccer tournaments, regional cross country and swim meets. If staged after the summer rush, these events would provide a welcome stimulus to many of our local businesses. We have the land and resources to do this, we just need the vision and the will.

This story was originally published August 31, 2017 at 7:54 AM with the headline "Hilton Head should capitalize on wider array of sporting events."