Stingrays hope to turn football into forum for helping disabled

Like his model, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League, Jay Lawrence aims to localize and make lucid the operations of a sports organization.

Just as the Packers function as a nonprofit, community-owned company rather then having one dominant owner — the only such set-up in all American major sports leagues — Lawrence will guide the Florida Stingrays of the Regional Indoor Football League (RIFL) using the same template.

After the Stingrays folded in 2008 under a more traditional, monopolized format, Law¬ence — under the umbrella of his charity H.A.N.D.S. U.P., which looks to aid disabled people in Southwest Florida — plans to split ownership of the team into 20,000 shares.

A total of 10,200 (51 percent) of those shares will stay with H.A.N.D.S. U.P. while the remaining 9,800 (49 percent) shares will be sold to any interested person, business or organization.

Each share comes with a season ticket (eight games) and costs $150.
The Stingrays will become an official member of the RIFL, a year-old indoor league that holds various teams from Southwest Florida and that hopes to eventually spread nationally, in November with sufficient support, and begin play in 2011 at Germain Arena.

"Our vision is to bring together local football fans and businesses to bring football back to Southwest Florida with a focus on helping disabled people," Lawrence said. "While funds will help provide for my charity organization, the Stingrays will provide low-cost entertainment to an area that needs it."

Seeing the collapse of the Stingrays in 2008 firsthand — Lawrence was vice president of operations under the old wing — did little to damp¬en his expectations.

"I'm very passionate about what I'm doing so I know it can work," Lawrence said. "I played baseball in high school and I've always loved football. The fact that the RIFL holds its season in the offseason of college and pro football is a boon as well."

Lawrence's motivation to reinvigorate the Southwest Florida sports scene lies in his deep, personal connection to a charity and a cause that both stand to benefit most from the operation.

The roots of H.A.N.D.S. U.P. charity were sewn when Lawrence fell asleep behind the wheel of a car as a 20-year- old in 1996, resulting in a crash that left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Mishaps in attaining treatment for the injuries, and the buoyancy that came refusing to passively accept the misfortune, led Lawrence to become involved with The Buoniconti Fund, the largest fundraising arm for the world's most high profile neurological research facility, The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.

His experience with Buoniconti, and his desire to impact the Southwest Florida Community he calls home more directly, inspired Lawrence to found H.A.N.D.S. U.P. Charity, a nonprofit organization that strives to acquire medical supplies for people with disabilities who are not covered by insurance.

"When I first got in the accident there was a situation with a product I needed," Lawrence explained. "I couldn't get it with my insurance so I had to buy the product myself. What would have happened if I couldn't afford to do that? That is why I started the charity."

Fitting in with the salvaging-a-life theme, the Stingrays are looking to employ players who have vulnerabilities and need a positive outlet to recover.

"Players in the RIFL are usually between 25 and 32 years old, but we are also looking at 18-year-olds and kids fresh out of college who maybe have gotten in trouble who need an extra year of growth," Lawrence said. "We will personally recruit kids in Southwest Florida, a football-rich community, with our objective being to take them to the next level."

College students serve as the target audience, a demographic that's likely to revel in the fast-paced, frantic nature of arena football, so much so that Lawrence would consider having home games played at FGCU's Alico Arena rather then at Germain, "if given the opportunity."

"Arena football is more like a rock show, with lots of scoring in a fun, family-oriented, safe environment," says Lawrence.

And beyond the singularly focused, community oriented nature of Lawrence's mission, the hope is that the reach extends to large-scale affairs.