13 New or Revamped Sports Facilities in San Antonio

Hey Everyone,
Its been a busy first part of Spring! I am so excited to have annouced my involvment with Bexar County in developing the business plan for 13 new or revamped sports facilities for San Antonio. Here is a run down of the announcements and recommendations if you are interested in whats soon to come!!

1. Our committee’s top recommendation is the UTSA Athletic Complex. 20 years from now, a top-tier, Div. I athletic program will do for our community what the Spurs have over the last 20 years. In the short-term, the International Track & Field Stadium and the International Soccer Stadium will have the greatest tourist impact.

2. The Regional Soccer & Special Needs Park – better known as the “Hartman Project” – is our second ranked recommendation. The 15 full-
sized fields, when combined with the 12 fields in the Classics Elite/McAllister Park soccer complex, produces a 27-field complex capable of hosting national (and even international) tournament play. In our ROI analysis, soccer is the best tourism investment San Antonio can make. The Special Needs Park should speak for itself. San Antonio has built 3 dog-parks, but has yet to build a Special Needs Park.

3. Ranked third from our committee is the National Aquatics Center at Northside ISD’s Farris Athletic Complex. USA Swimming, the National Governing Body for swimming, has given this project its strongest endorsement. Their Executive Director told us that we can conservatively plan on hosting five (5), large, state, regional and national events per year. These events top out at 1200 families in town for 9 days!

4. Our committee ranked Brooks Soccer Park as our fourth priority. This would be the first tournament-quality soccer facility on the south side. When completed, it will have 14, full-sized fields, only one less than the Hartman complex.

5. Fifth on our list is the Mission Concepcion Athletic Complex. Given the financial realities of a $75m cap, our committee generally focused on outdoor facilities, because the dollar goes farther. Unfortunately, this process left the indoor sports largely untouched, but not at Mission Concepcion. Here we will have the only indoor facility in San Antonio with 6 basketball/12 volleyball courts under one roof. More important, there is a plan for expansion to 12 basketball/24 volleyball courts in the future!

6. The Culebra Creek Soccer Complex will be the largest soccer park in Bexar County. The 14 new fields added to the existing 8 at the ACYSO Park will result in a 22-field complex in the heart of the exploding NW San Antonio.

7. The Wheatley Heights Sports Complex is unique and surprising. It is our only football-focused project! The Wheatley Heights Sports Complex will focus on a fast-pitch softball tournament 4-plex, an international track with a championship football field, football practice and tournament fields, a large soccer practice area, a driving range and a (future) par-3 golf course.

8. Our eighth recommendation is the already mentioned Classics Elite soccer addition, which the committee viewed in conjunction with the “Hartman Project”. This addition is 5, new fields in McAllister Park. When added to their existing 7 and the 15 fields in the “Hartman Complex”. NE San Antonio will have 27 tournament-quality fields within a 4-mile radius.

9. Southeast Skyline Park has been a fixture in southeast San Antonio. Built over a landfill at the far north end of Southside Lions Park and adjacent to Highlands High School, Southeast Skyline has served generations of southeast San Antonio boys and girls. This renovation and addition will replace a target for repeated vandalism with a beautiful, 7-field Pony League complex.

10. The Outdoor Sports Complex at St. Mary’s University can have the same impact on Div. II sports that the UTSA project can have on Div. I sports. Additionally, they are matching County dollars at slightly more than a 1:1 rate and they have plans in place for daily programs involving neighborhood youth.

11. The McAllister Park Little League Park will bring 10 new baseball fields to NE Bexar County. Currently, the McAllister Park Little League is built in the McAllister flood plain. With the recent completion of the dam, the existing fields are frequently unusable or destroyed. The Parks and Rec Department has encouraged ALL sports to “move to higher ground”. This will get McAllister Little League to higher ground, add much-needed capacity, and bring the complex up to tournament standards so that McAlister Little League can host tournaments both at the end of their season and for other organizations during their off-season.

12. San Antonio has a long history in fencing beginning with Lt. George Patton’s Olympic preparation. We have produced many Olympians and currently have the top-ranked woman epee fencer heading into Beijing. Before 9-11, many youth sports were headquartered on our military bases (soccer, judo, fencing, air pistol, etc.). After 9-11, our children and families lost access to those facilities. The Texas Fencing Center will not only keep fencing alive in Bexar County, it will take it to another level as the only, dedicated fencing facility in Texas. If built to plan, it will host 10 regional and 5 national competitions annually.

13. Our final recommendation is the SA Missions Baseball Academy. The Missions will build, manage and program the only adult (15 and older) 4-plex in Texas. As first-mover in baseball, this will give Bexar County a terrific advantage in tournament hosting. Additionally, having the best major-league coaching available to Bexar County boys and girls opportunities that even the Astros and Rangers aren’t creating in their communities.

Pt 3. on how a competitor can manage their time while in school

Once you begin preparing your meals, you will need Tupperware, a big lunch box, ice packs for the lunch box to keep meals cold, and medicine droppers! Medicine droppers? Absolutely! Medicine droppers are an awesome way to store your flax oil and fish oil while on the go! This way you don’t have to carry the whole bottle around and you can just measure how many drops are needed for your daily dosage. Droppers are a quick, easy way to take your fats! Another suggestion, is to find a microwave on campus that is in proximity of your classes so that you can heat everything up and still make it to class on time. Schedule your eating around classes so you can eat every 2.5 to 3 hours, but if you have to eat in class and your professors give you a hard time about it, explain to them why you are doing it and they will likely understand. If you are a trainer, sometimes this can actually lead to them to their interest in training with you!

Depending on the time that you will be away from home will determine how many meals you pack in your cooler. Though, as a rule of thumb, never leave your house with less than four meals prepped, ready, and in your cooler. This will ensure that if you get side tracked and cannot make it back home as planned, you are not stuck without your meals. This is very helpful especially if you have group projects and have to meet up with your group members.

Womens Sports Foundation

Hey all!

I will be speaking on Feb 12th at the AlamoDome as a spokesperson for Go Girl Go in their annual conference. I will be speaking on a healthy body image and eating disorders and be holding a workshop for those that would like more information.

If anyone is interested in attending this conference please let me know!

I hope all is well and yall are exercising and eating right!

Pt 2. on how a competitor can manage their time while in school

As a rule of thumb for pre contest and fat loss, the ratio is 50/20/30, meaning fifty percent of your daily intake is protein, twenty percent are carbohydrates and the last thirty percent are fats. Other common ratios 30/50/20 for gaining muscle mass; and 40/40/20 for general weight loss. An easy daily caloric intake calculation is to multiply your weight times ten. You can then divide your total caloric intake by the percentages given in the ratio, a simple solution for estimating your proteins, carbohydrates, and fats for the day. You can also divide those amounts by the number of calories in one gram of protein, carbohydrate, and fat; 4, 4, and 9 respectively. These results will give you the amount of grams of each component that you should be consuming on a daily basis.

Example:

Step 1: 125 lbs x 10= 1250 kcal/day
Step 2:
• 50 percent Protein / 1250 = 625 calories
• 20 percent Carbohydrates/ 1250 = 250 calories
• 30 percent FATS / 1250 = 375 calories
Step 3:
• Protein 625 kcal / 4 = 156-157g
• Carbohydrates 250 kcal / 4 = 62.5g
• Fats 375 kcal / 9 = 41.6-42g
*This is just a sample of a common ratio used for competition diets. Depending upon where you are in your preparation and how your body responds to this food ratio, will determine exactly how many grams of each component you will be consuming.

Pt 1. on how a competitor can manage their time while in school

By Meagan Rodriguez

Time is the only thing that we can’t get back in this fast paced in which we live. From school, work, family, and trying to stay healthy, there never seems to be enough time in the day. As a full time, full—load student with a lot of activities on my plate, how is it possible to find time to prep and compete? It comes down to a dedicated-balance routine between sleeping, training, eating, working, studying, and playing, but not necessarily in that order. My time management has to be precise and calculated or I am not able to get everything in, in one day. I literally live out of my day planner on season, but off season I am a little more lenient. In this article I will give you tools and advice on how to manage your time as a student, so that you can be more efficient with your time and become more organized in order to accomplish your competition goals easier than you may have before.
So you have picked the date for your competition and it is in the middle of the semester…now what? Take a deep breath and relax because going to school, working and prepping for competition is possible! The first thing to do is get a day planner. You need to write everything down and at what times they need to be started and completed. This will alleviate some stress about not having to remember everything in addition to prioritizing your daily responsibilities.
The next things to define and outline are- your top priority elements that must be scheduled consistently every week. The first, and a definite must, is food preparation! Pick one day out of the week (mine is Sunday) to prepare all of your protein and carbohydrates so that you can pack and go without having to cook every single day. Also, put your daily food diary on your fridge so that you can refer to it when prepping. If you do not have a nutritionist guiding you through your preparation, it is helpful to know how to calculate your protein, carbohydrate, and fat ratio. This will determine your daily caloric intake, giving you a food diary to follow.