Sporting a new look: the park and recreation field has a new friend in the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association's new president.

Coordinating 3-on-3 basketball tournaments for federal legislators and commissioning fitness-related ads for MTV are a common occurrence for Tom Cove.

As president and CEO of the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA), Cove's main responsibility is to push .his group into the public arena as an organization intent on preserving federal funding for physical education, local park development and urban recreation programming. And sometimes getting the lawmakers to forego legislation in favor of recreation.

But SGMA's focus was not always so green. Before Cove joined the group in 1991 as its vice president of government relations, SGMA's primary advocacy efforts were solely on product liability reform. But he pushed for a different agenda--one that aligned with environmental and recreation organizations such as NRPA. "This is what we're about--providing opportunities for Americans to recreate; to experience the joy of healthy lifestyles," Cove says. "But there are a lot--members of Congress, even members of my own association and everybody in between--who don't automatically get it. Well, you're a business trade association; you should be lobbying to reduce taxes."

Cove felt so strongly that SGMA should be fighting for federal funding of parks and recreation that he risked alienating himself from his organization when he embarked on a battle for passage of the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA) of 1999. For two years, Cove was part of a bi-partisan, multi-partnered effort to get CARA passed. The multi-billion-dollar legislation's key elements included establishing a permanent trust fund for outdoor conservation and recreation needs through the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Urban Park and Recreation Recovery Act (UPARR)--two programs that Cove has continued to fight for extra funding.

Since 1999, Cove has battled to secure money for LWCF, and was successful because his organization was not a typical group in support of the fund's ideals. "[The legislators] might listen to the business lobby different than they might listen to the advocacy lobby," Cove says. "The whole coming together of our advocacy effort of the LWCF is probably one of our biggest successes in the 90s."

Cove's foray into parks, recreation and conservation started in 1994 when he helped found the Americans for Our Heritage and Recreation, which worked on CARA's creation. Soon, the man representing a business trade organization was able to bring non-profit groups such as NRPA, The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land together in support of CARA.

By November 1999, a draft of CARA was introduced in the House, and passed seven months later. Unfortunately, the momentum was not enough to carry it through the Senate.

Cove says the CARA loss did not deter him, but rather fueled him to continue his efforts. As CARA was being debated in the Senate, a fledgling bill he supported was gaining favor from all factions of government. Introduced by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska.), the Physical Education for Progress (PEP) Act was a $5 million grant program for local public and private schools and community-based organizations to help fund the purchase of fitness/sports equipment and train teachers for physical education classes. "We're after every child to have a healthy lifestyle, a physically active lifestyle and this is the way you go about it," Cove says. The bill was passed in December 2000 and enacted in 2001 for four years, receiving $1.8 billion by 2004.

But with success comes failure as well. One of Cove's personal fights for parks and recreation, UPARR, has continually been underfunded and is currently eliminated from any federal budgets. "I'm frustrated with UPARR because I have to say I can't understand why it doesn't have more support on the federal level," he says. "I'm still hopeful that we can revive it at an appropriate time."

Cove's experience working on CARA gave him the understanding of what was needed to successfully pass legislation in Congress. With PEP's success, Cove is now looking for the bill that will alter society's perspective on recreation much like Title IX did for youth sports. Some ideas Cove is developing include a mandatory fitness test and senior fitness facilities in every community.

There is a clear momentum in the direction of both the support of physical activity and promotion," Cove says. "We know that many policy makers at every level ... are coming to appreciate the need to promote healthy lifestyles as a policy imperative."