San Antonio Sports Foundation

About Us
The San Antonio Sports Foundation is creating sports opportunities for our community and its youth. Since its inception, the Sports Foundation has dedicated it resources to three main objectives:

To target sports as a growth industry in San Antonio and to solicit sporting events that have a positive effect on the economy while creating national and international exposure;
To act as a catalyst in the development of sports and fitness programs for all ages, with a special emphasis on disadvantaged neighborhood youth;
To support the development and maintenance of safe, high quality athletic facilities.

History
In 1984, a small group of sports enthusiasts who recognized that amateur sports could transform a community set about creating an independent nonprofit to do just that.

Spurred by then-Mayor Henry Cisneros and supported in part by the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, they set about creating an independent nonprofit sports commission to bid on premier amateur athletic events. The 1989 AAU Junior Olympics was the Sports Foundation’s first major event, followed by the 1993 U.S. Olympic Festival, the 1995 National Senior Olympics and the 1998 NCAA Final Four.

Since then, the list of successful events kept growing (click here for a complete Sports Foundation history of events). Along the way, the Sports Foundation created Dreams for Youth to provide training in six Olympic sports for primarily disadvantaged children. Its youth initiatives have grown over the years to include the Community Olympic Development Program and the Valero Go!Kids Challenge™ and other event-related youth programs.

Goals
The Sports Foundation looks forward to hosting the NCAA Men’s Final Four in 2008 and the Women’s Final Four in 2010.

It continues to set its sites on hosting more Olympic trials, international and national sports competitions. The Sports Foundation’s youth programs continue to grow and develop gifted athletes who go on to earn major titles and college athletic scholarships. A major interest of the Sports Foundation now is to help develop more community youth sports facilities throughout San Antonio that can also serve as significant competition venues.