Sports Resource Center Concept OKd : Panel Begins Parceling Out L.A. Games Surplus

Directors of the foundation formed to parcel out Southern California’s portion of the huge surplus generated by the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games finally got down to business Monday, approving a series of projects designed to establish itself as a nexus of amateur athletic opportunities for youngsters in the region.

Foundation board members, meeting in private, approved the concept of developing a so-called Sports Resource Center to serve as both an athletic research facility and a clearinghouse for information about available athletic facilities and programs throughout Southern California.

The 19-member board, which includes Mayor Tom Bradley, baseball Commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth and other luminaries from the fields of politics, business and sports, also accepted a staff financial plan to spend $11 million on grants and $5 million on foundation-initiated programs over the next two years.

Finally, the board issued 17 grants worth a total of $1 million, including eight promoted by a coalition of community groups from South-Central and East Los Angeles. The coalition, which has its roots in community churches, had lobbied vigorously to secure $6 million for 98 of its projects--conducting an intense campaign that brought an edge of tension to the seemingly pleasant dilemma of how to spend the enormous bounty of the Olympic Games.

What emerged from Monday’s meeting was a clearer picture of how Southern California’s $90-million share of the $225-million surplus will be pumped back into the region that hosted the Games.

The grants issued ranged from $5,000 to $350,000, providing money to purchase, among other things, equipment for young judo performers in Pacoima and disabled rowers in Santa Barbara, to build a gymnasium in Monterey Park and expand archery programs in East Los Angeles, and to bring sporting opportunities to youngsters living near Los Angeles’ Skid Row.

“Our goal,” said Paul Ziffren, chairman of the Amateur Athletic Foundation of the Los Angeles Organizing Committee, “is to make a true difference in the quality of amateur sport--and, through sport, the quality of life--for young people and their communities throughout Southern California.”

With its Sports Resource Center and related programs--including plans for a coaching academy to train adults how to be better mentors for young athletes--the foundation intends to become a hub for the vast assortment of amateur athletic activities offered in the region.

Social Impact Through Sports

And with its first grant decisions since guidelines were established in September, the board indicated an interest in spending money on a diverse lot of sports programs, with an inclination toward attempting social impact through sports.

As envisioned by staff members, the sports center--at a cost of nearly $1 million a year to build and then run--would house an extensive library of historical films, documents and other research materials, and it also would serve as an outlet for information about what activities and facilities are available in Southern California.

“We hope to create a home there for people who really care about sports,” said Stanton Wheeler, foundation president.

The tentative staff plan calls for construction to begin sometime next year on the facility, which will be built at current foundation headquarters at 2141 West Adams Blvd.

Wheeler said the batch of grants approved Monday probably was focused more on the city of Los Angeles than subsequent ones will be, and he expressed concern about a relative shortage of grant requests from predominately Asian communities.

Surplus Pledged for Youths

Throughout preparations for the Olympic Games, Ueberroth, who was president of the LAOOC, and other Los Angeles Olympic officials promised continually that any leftover money would be spent on “sports for youth” in Southern California.

Following the Games, that concept underwent some revision, as forces on the board sought to widen the range of potential recipients. When Wheeler was hired last spring, he and his staff inherited two major spending decisions by the board.

One was to spend $2 million to open up otherwise locked playground facilities during the summer months, an action prompted as much as anything by a sense that some surplus money should be spent quickly on youth sports. The project met with limited success--surveys found that teen-agers gathered at many facilities to loiter more than to compete--and it will not be repeated, foundation officials said.

The other expenditure was more controversial. It granted $2 million to help finance a cultural festival akin to the one that preceded the Games. Although some directors think culture is an appropriate place to spend part of the Olympic money, Wheeler and other key foundation officials have stressed that they want to establish a sports foundation.

“We can support sports programs--and that’s it,” Wheeler said Monday.

Grass-Roots Tactics

Since setting grant guidelines in September, the foundation has received nearly 200 requests. Half of those have come from a coalition of the East Los Angeles-based United Neighborhoods Organization and the South Central Organizing Committee. Both organizations are affiliated with networks of local parishes and congregations and, using grass-roots campaign tactics made popular in the 1960s, have established themselves as a political force.

In a vivid display of its tactics, the coalition staged what it called a “celebration” rally Monday in a ballroom in the plush Century Plaza Hotel, adjacent to the building where foundation directors were meeting. Coalition officials said it cost $1,200 to rent the ballroom.

The 1,000 participants--including priests and nuns in their habits, and schoolchildren in uniform who arrived by the busload--sang patriotic songs, waved banners, said prayers and heard speakers, all intended to buttress the coalition’s package of proposals.

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner and a representative of the Sheriff’s Department were among those to address the rally.

Smaller contingents from time to time would leave the ballroom rally to clasp hands and hold silent prayer vigils outside the closed door of the room where foundation board members were gathered to weigh grant requests.

Pleased With Results

After the grants were announced, coalition officials expressed pleasure with the amount of support their proposals received and pointedly noted that they looked forward to working with the foundation “in the future.”

The total of 17 proposals before the board had been screened by both the foundation staff and a four-member grants committee, a process that is to be repeated every quarter until the surplus runs out.

Requests submitted to the foundation staff but not passed along to the board have not necessarily been eliminated and can be reviewed and approved another time.

The $8 million a year that the foundation is committed to spend will come mainly from interest and investment income, making a dent of only a few hundred thousand dollars in the original surplus. As years go on, however, inflation could make it necessary to spend greater amounts in order to finance the same level of programs and grants.

Foundation officials said they set only a two-year spending schedule so that financial patterns can be quickly evaluated and, if need be, altered.

As described by foundation officials, recipients of grants Monday were:

Aliso-Pico Recreation Center in Boyle Heights. It received $21,000 for sports equipment and a storage room.

Cleland House Community Center in East Los Angeles, $75,000 to expand sports programs for girls.

Community Young Gang Services, $349,990 for six sports clubs for gang members and potential gang members. The program will service youngsters in East Los Angeles, South Central Los Angeles, Pacoima and Altadena.

Foothill Division PALS Athletic Program, Pacoima, $7,000 for Police Athletic League programs.

Fundamental Foundation, $128,752, for Camp Fundamental, a basketball program for junior high school-age youngers, primarily in Watts.

Junior Archery Development Program, $65,000 to expand existing programs and establish a new one in East Los Angeles.

LAPD Central Explorer Post, $5,000 to purchase sports equipment to be used by Skid Row youngsters.

LAPD Northeast Boxing Program, $9,000 for a boxing ring, equipment and insurance needed to start a boxing program out of the LAPD Northeast Division.

Monterey Park Girls and Boys Club, $150,000 for sports equipment and programs.

Mount San Antonio Relays, $45,000 for a Youth Division Day so that youngsters from elementary school through high school can compete at the prestigious four-day track meet.

St. Mary’s Academy Summer Girls’ Basketball League, $22,000 to expand girls’ summer leagues in Inglewood and South Bay.

Santa Barbara Rowing Club, $13,900 to purchase equipment and train disabled and able-bodied rowers.

Santa Teresita Afterschool Sports Program, $16,000 for a program for youngsters at the Ramona Gardens housing project in Los Angeles.

Saybrook Park Athletic Assn., $17,200 to start a girls softball league and expand existing baseball programs in East Los Angeles.

Southern California Tennis Assn., $80,000 to establish 15 new sites for an eight-week tennis instruction program for low-income youngsters from 10 to 18 years old in Los Angeles.

Southern California Women’s AAU Basketball, $23,000 to expand basketball clinics and leagues for girls in junior high.

Westside Fencing Center, $20,000 for fencing demonstrations, instruction for coaches and for equipment. The Culver City-based program services inner-city youth.