User:Pensacola Sports Association/sandbox

About PSA
Originally incorporated in 1955, the Pensacola Sports Association (PSA) is a private not-for-profit agency in Pensacola, Florida and one of the oldest sports commissions in the country. PSA is here to foster and encourage amateur and professional sports and personal physical fitness in the Northwest Florida region. They recognize outstanding amateur and professional individuals and team performance.

Pensacola Sports Association has a staff of professionals who are experienced in all phases of event management, marketing, budgeting, event operations, hospitality, and public Relations.

Successful events produced by PSA include the Double Bridge Run 15K and 5K, community celebrations honoring Derrick Brooks and Jerry Pate, the Fight to the Fort Endurance Challenge, and the Pensacola Marathon. PSA also hosts a variety of community and charity events. Every year, they hold a free tennis clinic, the Racquet Round-Up, in Pensacola and Gulf Breeze, Florida. This year, they are helping benefit ARC Gateway with the Bud Light Charity Challenge Tennis Tournament.

The High School All-Star Series began with football in 2004 and now includes boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and volleyball. These games feature the top senior athletes from Escambia, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties in Florida.

PSA promotes events through media outlets including newspapers, radio stations, television stations, and cable companies throughout northwest Florida. Television spots and print advertising is also done for many of our events. PSA takes existing events and elevating them to the next level of success.

PSA Mission
The organization is operated to work with international, national, state, and local governments and other public and private entities in the development, organization, bidding, advertising, promotion, encouragement, hosting, and the operation of amateur and professional sports in Northwest Florida for the purpose of regional economic development (Sports Economic Development).

Pensacola Sports Association's mission is to unite in common organization all others whose purpose is to foster and encourage amateur and professional sports and personal physical fitness in the Northwest Florida region. The organization also recognizes outstanding amateur and professional individuals and team performance.

The PSA Foundation provides financial support which will inspire, encourage, and nurture the youth of Northwest Florida through sports related activities. The have provided over $350,000 in grants to over 40 area programs and organizations over the last 12 years, including: The American Red Cross Learn to Swim Program Special Olympics Senior Scholar Athlete Scholarships Pensacola Junior Tennis Association Greater Pensacola Junior Golf Association http://www.gpacswimteam.org/ Greater Pensacola Aquatics Club] The First Tee of Northwest Florida

Pensacola Double Bridge Run
The Pensacola Double Bridge Run was founded in 1998 by a committee of Pensacola area running and sports enthusiasts brought together by the Pensacola Sports Association to create a marquee event for the area. The committee was charged with negotiating with the Santa Rosa Island Authority of Pensacola Beach and the Cities of Pensacola and Gulf Breeze to develop a road race that would join mainland Pensacola to Pensacola Beach.

The inaugural event featured 12K and 5K runs, with the 12K starting at the foot of the 3-mile Pensacola Bay Bridge and the 5K starting farther east in Gulf Breeze. Both runs finished at the Casino Beach parking lot on the Gulf of Mexico. The next year, the 12K course was not used due to logistical challenges and the race was extended to 15K, which placed the runners along picturesque Bayfront Parkway in downtown Pensacola and allowed for better parking and pre-start staging. Runners were still asked to maintain an 11-minute mile pace until they crossed the 3-mile bridge into Gulf Breeze. The finish area was moved to the Pensacola Beach Visitor’s Information Center. Still searching for the ideal combination, a 10K race was added in 2002, but the committee reverted to the 15K / 5K format in 2003 to maintain the simplicity of two starts and one finish. The course remained largely unchanged until 2007, when a new proposal to run “against” traffic, utilizing the outside westbound lane, was adopted to make Highway 98 more accessible to vehicle traffic in Gulf Breeze and allow the race to finish on the Portofino Boardwalk side of Via DeLuna on Pensacola Beach.

Through the years, many people and companies have given support to the Double Bridge Run. Some of the sponsors have included: Academy Sports, Publix, COX, A Backcare Center, Logomotion, Air Tran, Coke, Budweiser, Sacred Heart Hospital, Vince Whibbs Automotive Group, Whitney Bank, the Pensacola News Journal and the Santa Rosa Island Authority. Volunteers from the Pensacola Sports Association, Gulf Breeze Sertoma, Pensacola Runners Association and the United States Marine Corps have played important roles in the success of the race. Most critically, however, has been the consent and support of the Santa Rosa Island Authority, the Cities of Pensacola and Gulf Breeze, without which the event would not be possible.

The run has provided financial support for the Gulf Breeze Sertoma and other groups and the Pensacola Sports Association’s Program of Work, which includes free sports clinics, the Senior Scholar-Athlete Awards Banquet, and High School All-Star games in football, volleyball, soccer, baseball and softball.

PSA History
In 1954 several area businessmen met with the Pensacola Chamber of Commerce with the goal of reviving the Pensacola Open, a PGA tournament originally held in Pensacola, Florida in 1929; and in 1955 PSA was incorporated as a not-for-profit organization, running the Pensacola Open from 1956 through 1988. From 1955 until 1995 Pensacola Sports Association remained a small association dedicated to mostly golf and tennis events. Recognizing that sports could be a vehicle for economic development while also benefiting local residents, the organization took on the role of sports marketing for Pensacola in addition to the many community-minded events on its calendar. PSA is dedicated to building a better community through sports.

Over the past sixteen years PSA has significantly increased the number of sporting events coming to the area. Today PSA organizes and assists over 40 events per year bringing thousands of individuals to Pensacola pumping millions of dollars into the local economy.

PSA has hosted nationally televised events which showcase Pensacola to the nation and world and has earned Pensacola the reputation for being an "elite signature sports city" for our ability to host world-class activities.