NATCHEZ — If you take just a cursory glance at Muscle Shoals, Ala., you’ll see a small town of approximately 12,000 people tucked away in the northwest corner of Alabama on the banks of the Tennessee River.

But what you see when you take a closer look might surprise you. Muscle Shoals has turned into a youth sports Mecca thanks to an aggressive mayor, city council and parks and recreation department and quality recreation facilities built in the past 12 years.

“Recreation has been a huge investment for us,” Muscle Shoals Parks and Recreation Department Director Rusty Wheeles said. “We’ve got right at 900 kids in our baseball and softball programs combined. We’re fortunate of a town our size to have as many kids and parks as we do. The mayor and council are very good to us.”

The city also offers flag and tackle football, soccer, basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, aerobics, baton and karate programs for the youth, operating on a annual recreation budget of over $1.2 million.

“The mayor and council have made a commitment to recreation,” Muscle Shoals City Clerk Ricky Williams said. “We’ve put a fair amount of money over the years in recreation facilities.”

And one of the reasons the city is able to put so much money into recreation and offer so many different programs is the amount of money they bring in from hosting tournaments at their main facility, the Muscle Shoals Sportsplex.

The Sportsplex, is four 300-foot baseball fields in a wheel shape with a press box in the middle. In addition to baseball games played there in the summer, the fields are also used for flag football and soccer games during the fall and winter.

The Sportsplex was built in 1997 at a cost of $1.4 million using a half-cent sales tax the city uses for what they call capital projects.

Williams said the capital projects sales tax wasn’t originally for building recreation facilities, but for storm drainage projects.

“What was really driving that half cent was storm drainage needs,” Williams said. “We began in the early 90s fixing problems we had with storm drainage. But once we got past those problems, we used the money in other areas.”

And one of those areas was upgrading the city’s recreation by building quality facilities, including the Sportsplex.

“Initially, we were just attempting to upgrade our facilities and have a first class (recreation) program,” Williams said. “Then we were introduced to the idea of what kind of impact those facilities could have on the local economy.”

And the impact has been tremendous. Wheeles said the Sportsplex will usually host 10-15 tournaments per year, with two of them usually being large tournaments.

This year, Muscle Shoals hosted the Dixie Youth State Tournament as well as the Super NIT for the USSSA travel team league, which featured 120 teams in town over a weekend. The city will be hosting that particular tournament for the next five years.

One reason the city has been so successful hosting multiple tournaments is because of the aggressive way they bid on them as well as the fine facilities.

“For any Dixie Youth tournament, you have to bid a year in advance, and for the World Series you have to bid two years in advance,” Wheeles said. “For travel ball, you’ve just got to get your name in the hat and start talking to people. I’ve got a packet done up and a video that shows the park, the area, everything. They’ll send an inspection committee to inspect your city. We’ve been doing this since 1999, so we’ve gotten to know them pretty well. They’re pleased with what we do.”

The city does have to pay what amounts to $75 per game to host the Dixie Youth tournaments as well as a fee to host the USSSA tournament, but the city also rents out the Sportsplex for a weekend to other travel leagues for tournaments.

“We rent the fields for $200 per day, per field,” Wheeles said. “If they want to get every field for a three-day tournament, it will cost them $800 per day. We get to keep the concession money, and they keep the gate money.”

Wheeles said the city estimated this year’s Dixie Youth State Tournament brought in between $2 and $3 million into the city.

“The thing about the Dixie Youth tournament, is that they play Saturday through Thursday, so they’ll be staying in town almost a week,” Wheeles said. “For the state tournament, I had 165 hotel rooms I had to book for the teams, parents, Dixie Youth officials and umpires. They’re booked for Saturday, Sunday and Monday at a minimum.”

A complex like — or even close to — the one in Muscle Shoals is something Natchez Dixie Youth President Porky Smith and others in recreation have wanted to see in Natchez for years.

And the issue of a recreation complex is one that Adams County voters will get to express their opinion on during the Nov. 3 election.

Smith said Natchez used to host state tournaments with regularity, but hasn’t even bid on one in six years, partly because the facilities aren’t on par with facilities in McGee, Laurel and Hattiesburg.

“Natchez would get a lot out of it if we could host them,” Smith said. “Other towns have passed us up when it comes to recreation complexes.”

Smith said his experience at this past year’s Dixie Youth World Series in Laurel showed him the economic impact a tournament like that would have in Natchez.

“I went to Laurel and stayed there a week,” Smith said. “Laurel doesn’t have the restaurants and hotels Natchez has got. A lot of people from other states were going 35 miles down the road to Hattiesburg to stay. Natchez has got plenty of restaurants and hotels for people.”

Muscle Shoals also has experience hosting a Dixie Youth World Series, and it was a huge boon for the local economy. The city hosted the World Series for ages 9-12 in 2002, which brought in an estimated $9 million.

“We had about 8,000 people here for that,” Wheeles said. “It was a big moneymaker for us.”

Not only is it a moneymaker, but Colbert County Tourism Board Director Suzanne Hamlin said recreation tournaments are huge for a community.

“Sports tournaments are the best thing you can do,” Hamlin said. “Sporting tournaments mean a lot to a community. People use it for a vacation. They go to your nicer restaurants and they’re going to want to stay at nicer hotels.”

And the tourism board should know, as they pass out surveys to as many visitors as they can during a tournament and even offer incentives to see that surveys are returned.

The tourism board has a tent set up at each tournament, and also has an information booth at each hotel in the county, Hamlin said.

“We ask them where they stay, where they eat and how much they spend shopping,” Hamlin said. “We try to get a survey into the hands of every family. Then we get figures from the hotels as well.”

Those numbers combine to form the estimated financial impact of the tournament.

Hamlin said she thought Natchez would be an ideal place for many families to go for sports tournaments, and expressed surprise that the city didn’t already have a quality complex.

“People will flock to Natchez, they’ll love it,” Hamlin said. It’s really a no-brainer for people. I can’t imagine that Natchez hasn’t got one already. It’s really worth it, so you ought to go for it. I think you’ll be so proud to have it.”

A non-binding referendum will be on the Nov. 3 Adams County election ballot. If a majority of voters vote “yes” local leaders have said they plan to form a nine-member committee that would begin working on proposals for a recreation site, cost, parks and more.