Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

As state Rep. Darrin Williams prepares to ascend to the role of Speaker of the House in the Arkansas legislature, he also assumes the role of honorary chairman of an ambitious, new fund-raising effort by the First Tee of Central Arkansas. Williams has a personal interest in the facility as his 14-year-old son, D.J., has been participating in the First Tee programs for the past nine years. Williams said the First Tee has provided bonding time for the entire Williams family, thanks to D.J.'s involvement.

Williams, a Little Rock native who didn't have a public First Tee facility for youths to learn the game of golf when he was a child, says he also appreciates how many more youths the facility could reach, not only with the game, but with its lessons in life skills designed to prepare youths for adult life beyond the golf course.

The nonprofit First Tee, seeking to become self-sustaining after a decade of Stephens family financial support in creating the facility and to cover annual shortfalls, aims to raise $200,000 in a year with its new fund-raising efforts chaired by Williams. One way to significantly increase the bottom line would be to attract more youths in Central Arkansas to the facility, where membership is $175 for a year — membership includes all greens fees, unlimited range balls and the many programs geared to each level of participant.

We visited with the House Speaker-elect and lawyer recently to discuss his plans as honorary chairman of First Tee:

Q. You noted in your recent introductory press conference how “great” the curriculum and program at First Tee is, and that the facility's goal is to increase membership from about 1,300 to 3,000  kids. How do you get the word out, beyond what's been said about First Tee the past 10 years, to more than double the membership?

Williams: Kids today have so many distractions, so many things to deal with. More and more kids are not active, they’re playing video games in the home, and there’s not a lot being taught playing those video games. Out here at the First Tee, not only are we teaching life skills — honesty, respect, confidence — but we’re also introducing these healthy lifestyles, so they’re getting active. Unfortunately, childhood obesity is a huge problem in the state of Arkansas. We have 449,000 kids on our Our Kids First program and we can’t continue to fund these health programs. We’ve got to make people healthy. So it’s about prevention. Come out here and play some golf, get healthy, learn some life skills. There are just countless stories of children who have started here at the First Tee and gone on to do wonderful things in life.

This is much more than a golf facility. This really is about changing lives. It’s a transformational facility. There are so many, so many success stories here and I’m just excited to be the honorary chair of this new campaign to reintroduce the community to the First Tee.

We’ve been here 10 years now, and we’ve done a good job. It’s now really time to make this nonprofit be sustainable for the next 10 years and for generations to come because this is an outstanding, wonderful place of learning, a place of healing, a place of healthy lifestyles here in Central Arkansas that some people don’t know about, and we’ve got to tell our story.

Adding 1,700 youths to the membership roll would really boost the bottom line, but some of those kids or their families being targeted might not have $175 to join for the year. So, that’s where you’re looking for grassroots donations from the public?

Exactly, we’re looking for grassroots [contributions], but the beautiful thing about the First Tee, no matter who comes out here, whether they can afford to play or not, whether they have a set of golf clubs or not, they are treated out here the same. We have scholarships available for kids who cannot afford to pay for their golf, but we also have the equipment. What better place to come out and get great equipment if you’re a kid. So, we’re reaching out to the community because we need those grassroots dollars, those $25, $50, $100 checks to come in on a repeated fashion, in addition to expanding our corporate outreach. But of course, if we get more kids out here, we’re introducing more families and more friends of those kids to the First Tee. So, it has a rippling effect.

When I look at the folks even in my law office, I’ve got four partners who have kids who are young enough to be out here playing First Tee and only of them has a child out here. The other three, they’ve talked about doing it, but I’ve got to encourage them to get out here, I’ve got to say, “Come over here and let’s bring them out here.”

I’ve got one of my partners whose daughter loves it. She’s here as much as my son, D.J., is here. The other partners, I’ve got to say, “Come on, let’s come out here for a day.” It just takes us bringing the people out here. Once you get out here, you fall in love.