Sports center takes on new name, sponsorship

MAT-SU — The familiar sports center along the Palmer-Wasilla Highway has become just a little more local with a new sponsorship from Matanuska Telephone Association.

Formerly the AT&T Sports Center, the MTA Sports Center remains a family-oriented, affordable facility located midway between Palmer and Wasilla.

“The intent was always to go with a local sponsorship, it just didn’t work out with MTA to start with,” said sports center co-owner Scott Johannes. “(Now) the stars have aligned.”

Scott and Karis Johannes, who co-owns the facility, had a five-year contract with AT&T to be the center’s leading sponsor and have naming rights to the building. Now that those five years are up, MTA has taken the lead.

MTA also has the naming rights to the MTA Events Center in Palmer and sponsors the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center turf in Wasilla.

MTA Director of Marketing and Sales Carolyn Hanson said their involvement isn’t so much about sports, explicitly, but about investing in the community.

“We look for venues that the community sees as assets,” Hanson said.

MTA contributes to hundreds of nonprofits, she said, and hopes to be a business “for kids’ kids,” maintaining positive relationships with customers for generations to come.

Regardless of its sponsor is, the sports center will likely continue to draw in youthful members.

“One of the driving forces for this facility was a place for Valley youths to have a home (gym),” Johannes said.

The Johanneses have children who grew up playing sports in the area between city limits. Scott Johannes was in the construction business at the time, but was “looking to do something different” for the community, he said.

So they took out a map, marked a dot halfway between Wasilla and Palmer, and found the closest lot possible, now their current location.

“There was just a real need out here,” Johannes said.

League Coordinator and Colony Middle School physical education teacher Martin Hursh spoke to that.

The center has five courts, all of which are full nine months out of the year, he said — as are the schools. Middle and high school basketball, soccer and volleyball teams all vie for gym space in Valley schools every year, as do youth and adult competitive leagues.

With school scheduling conflicts being resolved by the development of the sports center, schools are able to support more extracurricular activities than ever before, Hursh said.

“We could never go back,” he said. “It would be absolutely impossible.”

The sports center has been a great place to conduct home school P.E. classes, too, Hursh said.

But non-school sports are booming at the center, too. Four times a year, the sports center services the entire state, hosting Valley Youth Basketball teams from as far north as Barrow and as far south as Juneau for tournaments.

Valley League Administrator Steve Imoe said the league has grown since coming to the center, and they’ve had to deal with way fewer administrative headaches.

“We were all over the place,” Imoe said.

The central location also has been a help to parents, who have the opportunity to work out while their children play ball.

Johannes estimated that 80 percent of their sports center memberships are family memberships, which Membership and Marketing Director Dana Ness said are more inclusive than that of other exercise centers. A family membership is just that — not just two parents and two kids, she said, but an entire family, which might include a grandparent living with their children or adult college students living with their parents.

Ness said the facility serves members from Big Lake, Butte, Knik, Sutton and Chugiak, in addition to Palmer and Wasilla residents.

Although the new name doesn’t signify any changes to how the facility is run, there are a few new things at the center. Growth of the sports center’s CrossFit program, for example, led to a physical addition to the facility, finished in December. Palmer business Paradise Tanning also is expanding into the MTA Sports Center, opening a second office there in May.

While youth and family are the focus of the facility, Karis Johannes said, the goal is for all members to experience “not just physical healthiness, but emotional, spiritual, all the way around” healthiness.

MTA Sports Center is located at 1507 N. Double B St., Palmer. Call 746-7529 for more information.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.