The TSSAA Spring Fling is happening soon!
The Olympic Style seven sport championship will be held May 23-26, and hosted by the Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce. Tickets are $12 per day if pre-purchased online and $15 cash at the gate. Venue and parking information can be found here on the TSSAA website.
The TSSAA also has a detailed history of the unique event,
“TSSAA is the only high school athletic organization in the United States to have a seven-sport, Olympic-style spring sport championship tournament for baseball, softball, track and field, team and individual tennis and soccer.
It was Middle Tennessee State track and field coach, Dean Hayes and Merrill Eckstein, president of the Greater Chattanooga Sports & Events Committee that in the early 1990s convinced TSSAA Executive Director Ronnie Carter to pursue organizing the spring sports championships into a one-week, single-city event. Carter was keen to the idea, but the thought of finding a single city with suitable venues for all the sports seemed impossible.
Carter felt it was only fair to invite cities statewide to bid on the event. In 1993, the cities of Clarksville, Nashville, and Chattanooga made proposals to the nine-member TSSAA Board of Control and the City of Chattanooga was awarded the 1994 Spring Fling.
The initial three-year contract was eventually extended for a fourth year. Seven cities bid for the event in 1997 and Chattanooga was selected to host for an additional five years, beginning in 1998.
In the spring of 2003, Spring Fling moved to Memphis. After a three-year stint in Memphis, Spring Fling moved to Murfreesboro in 2006 and has remained there to this date.
Spring Fling XXVII was not held in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.”
