SPRINGDALE — The All-Star Arena in Springdale was in danger of being auctioned off in a state-conducted tax debt sale last week.
The facility, which was built on the Shiloh Academy/First Baptist Church campus in 2005, was cited for being nearly $300,000 behind in property tax payments. The arena management was trying to arrange a loan before the tax auction took place to stave off the loss of the facility.
The auction was set to begin at 10 a.m. Tuesday, June 15, at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Fayetteville.
The arena was built in 2005 next to Shiloh on land the church “gave” to the group that had conceived the idea. The church deeded the land to the arena “if” the arena would provide Shiloh with free and unlimited access to the numerous basketball courts, weight rooms, soccer fields and running track.
The arena has had a major impact on youthbasketball in northwest Arkansas. Shiloh, a member of the largest school-based elementary basketball league in the state, had some success in their youth program previously but were by no means a dominant force.
After gaining the use of the arena for their elementary school teams, Shiloh saw a dramatic rise in the depth and playing ability of their basketball youngsters.
Not only were they able to give their youth athletes double or triple the amount of gym practice time that most youth schools get, the arena has been a great recruiting tool to get young athletes to play for them. Athletics below 7th grade levelhave no governing body concerning such issues so there are no rules to which to adhere.
Besides the numerous playing fields/courts at the arena, the facility boasts a highly-qualified staff in a number of sports. Since 2005, Shiloh athletes have gotten extra training in sports like track, cross country, softball and baseball, as well as soccer and basketball. While Shiloh has been a dominant force in football prior to 2005, since the advent of the arena, they have won high school titles in a multitude of sports.
Should the attempts to borrow money fall through, although that would be hard to visualize with the amount of money that Shiloh boosters can come up with, then there might be new owners running the place.
The money to be borrowed is daunting but the problem has been five years in the making. Theproperty tax debt has been accumulating since the building went up in 2005 as no property tax payments have ever been made. They recently paid off a sales tax debt they had also accumulated in the past five years.
Shiloh boosters have a huge reason to help keep the current owners in place. The new owners of the arena would not be bound by the old agreement allowing Shiloh free and unlimited use of the building and such a development would be a major blow to the Springdale school’s efforts to completely dominant the state athletically. Coupled with the Arkansas Activities Association’s new antirecruitment rules, Shiloh could lose the advantages they have built up over the public schools over the past 10 years.
Hogs lose twice in extra innings
The Razorback baseballteam had provided a great object lesson on the importance of maintaining focus and drive throughout the whole season. Arkansas played fantastically for most of the season, being ranked as high as fifth in the nation in some polls in April. A late season swoon dropped them a dozen spots in all the polls although they did hang on to enough of their ranking to get to host one of the 16 regional tournaments in the NCAA tournament.
They won the regional but, because of the their late season falter, they ended up with the 16th seed in the super-regionals thus requiring them to travel to Arizona state to play for a spot in the College WorldSeries. They lost both games to the top ranked team in America, both losses in 12-inning affairs.
They surprised the experts and played the nation’s No. 1-ranked and seeded team in the closest, toughest games the SunDevils have had to endure this year. ASU is 52-8 for the campaign and are considered heavy favorites for winning the NCAA championship. If Arkansas could have drawn nearly any other opponent for the super-regional, they may have well have qualified for the Collegiate World Series set to begin shortly in Omaha, Neb.
The season is now over with a lot of the Hogs (8) being offered paying careers as professional baseball players. As is often the case with baseball teams that have great success as Arkansas has had the past few years, players get drafted at season’s end and the recruiters have more work to do.
◊◊◊
John McGee is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The TIMES. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Sports, Pages 10 on 06/23/2010