According to the U.S. Weather Bureau, the sun shines in the San Antonio area 300 days a year. Can you fault residents, than, for their outdoors bent? And with over 200 city-owned parks, pools, skateboarding facilities, golf courses, football and soccer fields, among other venues, it is easy to do just that, go outdoors.

But while much of our activity is outdoors, the city derives an amount of its notoriety, and pleasure, from indoor sports activities.

For instance, San Antonio and its AT&T Center is home to the National Basketball Association’s 2007, 2005, 2003 and 1999 champion San Antonio Spurs, who have been playing here since 1973, the San Antonio Rampage, the Central Hockey League farm team of the National Hockey League’s Phoenix Coyotes, and the Silver Stars, the W(omen’s) NBA affiliate.

Going outdoors again, the San Antonio Missions, a Double-A Texas League baseball farm team of the San Diego Padres, which plays its home games at Nelson W. Wolff Stadium, has called San Antonio home since 1968.

And at the Alamodome, a facility built in 1993 to accommodate sporting and convention events, the city has hosted the Alamo Bowl, a December college football bowl game, the NCAA Big-12 football championship and the NCAA Basketball regional and Final Four tourneys.

The city is also home to the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, an East vs West game featuring high school senior football players.

We have tried for years, so far unsuccessfully, to acquire a major league (NFL)football franchise, this being the largest U.S. city without one, though we did host the San Antonio Gunslingers in 1984-85, a franchise of the United States Football League. Instead, we have more recently hosted Dallas Cowboys’ and before that, Houston Oilers’, summer camps. And in the last two years we’ve talked with Major League Baseball about moving a baseball team here.

In 2005, the city even approached Major League Soccer with an interest in hosting a team, but that proved as hard to come by as baseball and football.

Back to participatory sports again, we have listed as an attachment all manner of metro area sports activity, from A (Archery) to T (Tennis), for an active and enthusiastic population. While we’ve probably left more than a few activities out, including ping-pong and Frisbee golf which come to mind, we will keep an eye on the target and when a new sport crosses our path, we will add it on.

In the meantime, enjoy the sunshine, the facilities and the activity.

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