Making a Great Impact Together

by Gabriella Colurciello, Associate Director of Marketing & Communications, Greater Waco Chamber

Sports make great stories and that’s why people love them. In Greater Waco, the community is fortunate to have an organization dedicated to growing the sports scene.

A group of community leaders went on an InterCity Leadership Visit, hosted by the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, and saw sports commissions in other cities fueling their economies. Those leaders thought “Why don’t we have one in Waco?” They came home, formed a committee and talked to leading entities in the community: the City of Waco, McLennan County and the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, and the Greater Waco Sports Commission was born. Each of these entities became important pillars of support for the new nonprofit organization.

The Greater Waco Sports Commission is a different kind of nonprofit. Generally, sports commissions create and grow events to fuel the local economy and positively impact the quality of life. The Greater Waco Sports Commission does more; it is building for sustainability for years to come. For nearly seven years, it has thrived from community support: from financial supporters to community members networking on their behalf. A small-but-mighty team of two, Event Manager, Emily Miller and Mike Vogelaar, Executive Director, coupled with many passionate volunteers, are making great strides to positively impact the community.

Vision & Direction

The mission is to create an economic impact and improve the quality of life for local residents through sports and sporting events. National and international events bring visitors to the community. These visitors stay in hotels, visit local retailers and eat in local restaurants. The money generated from them supports the local economy and provides the city with financial resources to make improvements.

In addition to helping host events, most notably, the Ironman, the Greater Waco Sports Commission advocates for what’s next for Waco’s sports scene. The Greater Waco Sports Commission team is always on the lookout for opportunities to put Greater Waco on the map: with the next sports facility or competition.

Ultimately, the Greater Waco Sports Commission sees itself as a connector, convener and leader. Vogelaar has his eye on the future as well as the present. He believes Waco’s Cameron Park, Brazos River and historic downtown are three of the community’s greatest assets and feels it is the job of the Greater Waco Sports Commission to look after those assets. These assets make the community unique.

“No one has that trifecta that we have here, in Downtown Waco, and a community that wants to support it,” he says. “Both the city and the county want to support it, which is extremely unique and rare.”

Ironman Waco: A Destination Race

An Ironman Triathlon is one of a series of longdistance triathlon races organized by the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC), consisting of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112- mile bicycle ride and a marathon 26.2-mile run, raced in that order. It is widely considered one of the most difficult one-day sporting events in the world.

Bringing the Ironman race to Waco is a fantastic example of the impact the Greater Waco Sports Commission has on the Greater Waco community. In recent years, local restaurants have reported recordbreaking weekends and hotels are fully booked during race weekend.

In 2021, the Half-Ironman and Ironman were hosted in the same city, Waco, on the same weekend for the first time ever in North America.

“That’s extraordinary,” Vogelaar said. “Having all these different people involved in that event: the City, the County, the volunteers and volunteer directors, the Sports Commission, the Ironman Group itself, medical, traffic control, security; there’s so many different people involved. And they made it happen. It’s incredible.”

The impact speaks for itself. Data collected and distributed from the Ironman Group indicates that the economic impact was more than $10 million. On food alone, it’s estimated that over the weekend, 2,500 athletes and their families spent almost $1 million.

This year, the Greater Waco Sports Commission is excited to have created scholarships for six McLennan County residents, including college students, who are interested in competing in the 2022 race. They’ve partnered with businesses in the community to offer free equipment and training membership to prepare these individuals to race and help tell the story of how they will become Ironmen and stories about the Waco community.

“The idea is to change the quality of life for these six residents,” says Vogelaar. “We’re going to get behind them and support them and help them become Ironmen, and, at the same time, we’re going to give the community a way to cheer for these people…we get to be on the journey with them.”

Without the Greater Waco Sports Commission, events like this would be impossible. More opportunities like that exist and it’s the job of the Greater Waco Sports Commission to find them and bring them to the Greater Waco community.

Facility Improvement Committee

Parents of children who play sports are often familiar with frequent road trips to Austin, Dallas and Houston to play games and tournaments.

“We don’t have the facilities to attract certain types of events yet,” says Vogelaar. “I don’t want parents to have to make hours-long road trips so their kids can compete in sports. I want them to be able to play here. To do that, we need to capitalize on, and improve, our existing facilities and build necessary new ones to attract additional competitions.”

Even more than utilizing the facilities that do exist in the community, the Greater Waco Sports Commission wants to see the sports community grow and bring enough commerce that it positively impacts the quality of life for residents.

To achieve this goal, the Greater Waco Sports Commission hosted town hall meetings to invite community members to join a committee to help figure out what the next facility improvement/capital improvement that the community needs.

New Ideas

Another perfect example of how the Greater Waco Sports Commission partners with members of the community is a new martial arts competition. While on the 2021 InterCity Leadership Visit to Tulsa, Oklahoma, Mike Vogelaar met Chris Gonzales. Gonzales owns one of the two jujitsu dojos in town and would love to bring a martial arts competition to Waco, but he didn’t know where to begin. It’s a highly traveled sport and involves youth and adults. Now, he is working with the Greater Waco Sports Commission to come up with different ideas and explore different facilities, including those that are available from local school districts, to find the right location. In addition to creating this new event, if successful, it could bring additional martial arts competitions to Waco.

“That’s what the Sports Commission is all about,” says Vogelaar. “We want to create this new event, that would bring a few hundred athletes to the community and turn it into something bigger, which could bring a few thousand athletes to Waco.”

The next event that they’re planning is a Mother’s Day Run to be hosted at Waco Surf.

“There’s a lot of runs, but when we were brainstorming, we thought how cool it would be to host a run on the beach in Waco,” said Vogelaar.

With waves crashing in the background, and mimosas after the run, Vogelaar promises that it will be a good time for the whole family, with a fun run for kids and inflatables.

It is clear, with just these few examples that the Greater Waco Sports Commission believes in connecting likeminded individuals and helping make their sporting events a success.

Next Big Thing

Members of the Chinese National Rowing Team training on the Brazos River for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics

photos by Rod Aydelotte, Waco Tribune Herald

“All my chips are in on rowing,” said Vogelaar.

The Brazos River is one of the best rivers in the world for rowing. Rowing is no longer for the elite; it’s for everyone. The new leader of the Waco Rowing Club is passionate about implementing a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) model for rowing. Ultimately, the goal is to have individuals of all demographics be able to train and compete at a high level.

It’s about more than bringing a new sport to the community, though.

“Did you know that only about 2% of high school football players can earn a football scholarship?” asks Vogelaar. “In contrast, nearly 50% of women rowing athletes can earn a scholarship. That would change some lives here.”

Rowing is about working as a team and not about overcoming another team. It teaches athletes how to work with others toward a common goal, as well as building strength.

“There are teams, of more than 60 individuals, from all over the country and the world that travel for six to 13 days to train,”says Vogelaar. “It would give us the opportunity to recruit these teams to train on the river.”

As far as economic impact goes, it could be a gamechanger for the community. Teams interested in traveling to train would travel between Thanksgiving and February, which is when local hotel occupancy is at its lowest. With up to three teams practicing on the river at a time, that could be upwards of 200 athletes practicing for up to two weeks at a time.

“It’s about improving the quality of life for residents, building futures and saving lives,” Vogelaar says. “Arshay Cooper, a man who grew up in West Chicago and a member of the first all-Black high school rowing team says that rowing saved his life.”

The first step in putting Waco on the map for rowing is simple: the river needs a dock. Currently, the Greater Waco Sports Commission is working through community input and working to get permission to help the Waco Rowing Center build a dock.

Propelling Waco forward and bridging together the community through the sport of rowing, Waco Rowing Center offers national opportunities and mentorship for all our children, elite racing and training for all ages, a national training destination and is the host of Waco’s first major regatta in November 2022.

Waco Rowing Center is an elite rowing facility for our community, with a DEI model at the core of its mission. With a board of local leaders and national rowing icons, they aim to change the sport of rowing by doing it the right way from the beginning by simply taking advantage of the Brazos River and Waco’s surrounding bodies of water, which represent some of the best “rowable” water in the country. In the coming months, the city can look forward to seeing its youth out on the water, teams from across the nation visiting to train, and at the end of the year Waco’s first major regatta.

“These are the solutions I’m passionate about,” says Vogelaar. “I want to be able to grow these missions and fuel these goals through the Greater Waco Sports Commission.”

Getting Involved

The Greater Waco Sports Commission is active on social media and the best way to stay up to date on the latest from them is to follow them on Facebook. Information is also available on their website at wacosports.org.

Why Waco, Mike?

Mike Vogelaar, Executive Director, Greater Waco Sports Commission

The quality of life in Waco is the reason I came here. I came to Waco to attend Baylor University, and when I graduated, my wife and I moved to the Dallas area so she could complete her schooling. With our oldest child about to enter middle school, we started contemplating moving. We explored Waco and it seemed like a really great community; everyone we talked to said it was a great place to raise a family and that it has a slower pace of life, so we made the change. I felt called to this community and to make an impact here.

Why Waco, Emily?

Emily Miller, Event Manager, Greater Waco Sports Commmission

The thing that I love about Waco is you can make an impact and see it. When you’re in a bigger city, it’s hard to make those bigger impacts. In Waco, you see people you know at the grocery store, at the gym and at the Farmer’s Market; it’s a special feeling and it really gets me excited and makes me feel like I’m part of something. I love the small business community; it’s something I’m really passionate about. I worked for a small business, so I was able to connect with other small businesses and support them. The small business community is so strong and it’s easy to get to know business owners. My husband and I have really enjoyed being here and hope to stay here for a long time.