The Central Florida Sports Commission would like to welcome and recognize the newly formed Lake County Rowing Association (LCRA). LCRA is a non-profit organization that was started by the Leadership Lake Class of 2010, along with Commissioner Sean Parks and other rowing enthusiast throughout the county.

LCRA plans to offer a number of "Learn To Row" Clinics throughout the year that will be offered to Lake County youth and masters rowers. If you would like to find out more about the LCRA or if you're interested in becoming a member, club officials will have a booth set up at Pig On The Pond in Clermont on March 9th & 10th. You   can also contact Karen Dorr at lakecountyrowing@yahoo.com

for more information.

As mentioned in last month's impact report, the Central Florida Sports Commission sent representation to two (2) national conventions.   The first was the US Lacrosse Convention which was staged in Philadelphia.  Billed as "the unofficial start to the lacrosse season," this event gathers the very best the sport has to offer, and provides the sport's largest educational opportunity, with over 5,000 coaches, officials, program administrators and exhibitors in attendance each year.  This convention provided the Sports Commission the opportunity to network with potential event organizers and coaches that might be interested in booking one of our various venues within Lake County.

The same week, we sent staff, along with the National Training Center, to the National Soccer Coaches Association of America Convention in Kansas City.  Billed as "The World's Largest Annual Gathering of Soccer Coaches," the NSCAA Convention typically draws approximately 4,000 coaches from our 30,000-plus members, and more than 9,000 attendees.  Like the US Lacrosse Convention, this convention provided the Sports Commission the opportunity to promote our area assets to interested parties that might want to book one of our multi-purpose venues for an event, camp or team training. 

In other news, we recently have started discussions with USA Synchronized Swimming about bringing them back to the National Training Center (NTC) with either the 2013 Synchro US Open or 2013 US Masters National Championship.  Each event would attract around 200 athletes, along with friends and family, from across the United States to Lake County for four to five days depending on the event.  Synchronized swimming events have been very successful at the NTC and we look forward to bringing more back to Lake County.

We have also started dialogue with the NCAA about bringing the Division III Women's Golf National Championship back to the Mission Inn in 2014 and 2015.  You might recall that we hosted the 2010 and 2011 Division III Women's Golf Championships in Lake County, this year we are hosting the 2012 Men's Division III Championship.  The NCAA is very fond of Lake County and Mission Inn and we have had a very successful run of hosting their national championships in our community since 1997.