One of the best things about OnMilwaukee.com is how it chronicles and participates in the development of an agenda for growth for Milwaukee and the area. The people who work there obviously love this town and they think long and hard about what we need to grow.

Well, I love this city, too, and I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make it a better place to live and work. And a big part of that is the world of sports. Sports and athletics pay huge dividends in recruiting world class talent and in the mental and physical health and recreation of our citizens. But we need to plan a lot more than we are doing now ...

Herewith, the Dave Begel Sports Agenda for Milwaukee (details forthcoming):

There is one overriding agenda item. That is to create a Metropolitan Sports Authority. Think about a way to give it limited taxing ability and have representatives of professional, college and amateur sports on the authority. Put all the different boards that run facilities on the authority. Put this group in charge of facility development ranging from financing to construction and operation. Make it the guiding spirit for athletic activity in our area.

I'd suggest making this a four-county thing, including Milwaukee, Washington, Racine and Ozaukee. Maybe Kenosha and Washington, as well. This authority needs to be created by the State Legislature, so we need a governor and state lawmakers to push this idea.

The first task for this authority is to figure out how to build a new arena in Downtown Milwaukee. It's no longer a question of whether we need it. It's now become a matter of how do we get it done. Make that job No. 1 for the authority.

Now, let's look at some other suggested ideas.

1. Let's stage a world-wide three on three basketball tournament. Basketball is truly the most global game we've got going, and we could become an international magnet if done right. We should put this right on the streets Downtown in the middle of summer. The Bucks and NBA should certainly be a major sponsor but let's find a company with a huge global reach to be the big sponsor. Can anyone say S.C. Johnson and Sons?

2. Extreme sports are fantastic for spectators and participants. And we have this fantastic park system. Let's get some experts in here and build world class extreme sports facilities. I mean everything from crazy bungee jumping to half pipes in both winter and summer. Let's build seats for spectators and do concessions and all the rest of it. Create a Midwestern Mecca for extreme sports by salting a pot of prize money. We can do summer and winter sports all in the same place. Again, sponsorship is a key element here.

3. We need to do something at the lakefront. It's a spectacular area, both the water and the land. The things they've done at Bradford Beach with the volleyball stuff are amazing. But let's take it to a new level and rip some of the major volleyball activity away from the beaches of California and bring it to the Midwest. If we can't do volleyball, let's find some other kind of activity to have at the lakefront. It is too precious a resource to ignore it. We do, however, need to find a way to use the lakefront without spoiling it. We want to maintain the beauty but make it a destination for some athletic activities.

4. Put together a group to go after a women's professional golf tournament. There are serious efforts underway to grow the LPGA tour and Milwaukee could get into that effort by staging a tournament at Brown Deer. It's a great course for the women pro's and we could come up with a prize money pot that is one of the biggest on the LPGA tour. While nobody showed to see the nobodies at the men's tournament, the women could draw much bigger crowds for lots of reasons.

5. Milwaukee used to be a stop for world class tennis players. Both the men and the women have major tours and they are always looking for new places to play in the United States. We could build a tennis facility at one of our parks designed to host top flight collegiate and professional tennis tournaments.

6. I don't know how big softball is around the country, but I'd imagine it's got a healthy share of aficionados. I know there's a national team, but it seems to be centered in California. That leaves a lot of the country underserved. It's hard to organize amateur sports, but we could take a leaf from the bowling experience. Bowling has done a good job of organizing things for amateurs and the same thing might be possible with softball players.

7. I'd like to see Milwaukee do something that gives kids who normally don't have much of a chance the opportunity to play organized and supervised sports. Let's face it, people with a little money find sports accessible. People without money have a hard time. I'd like to see Milwaukee become a model for the nation in developing programs that allow all kids the opportunity to get into the game.

8. I want to return to tennis for something for all kids to do. Building tennis courts doesn't take much space or money. Maintenance is fairly easy. Kids don't need a lot of equipment. And you could develop a Big Brothers / Big Sisters kind of thing that revolves around tennis. It's also a skill for a lifetime and it's a gentle game with strict rules for both playing and behavior. Again, we could become a model for the country with this.

9. Let's build something. I don't know what. But Milwaukee is a city that builds stuff. Let's create an incubator for people with ideas to improve an athletic activity. I have no idea what that might be, but somebody out there is working on it. And those ideas are looking for a place to land and to grow and develop. Why not Milwaukee with our history of a very skilled workforce and an outstanding work ethic along with all the tools you'd ever need. We already build the best bikes in the world in Wisconsin, why not the next big thing, whatever it is, right in Milwaukee.

10. I think we ought to do something about soccer. I don't know what, but it just seems to me that soccer, which is a huge sport everywhere but the United States, ought to be a part of this whole mix. This is where the Metropolitan Sports Authority can have a real impact, figuring out what role sports like soccer play in our overall athletic panorama.

That's it. My agenda for sports. Not carved in stone and I realize that nothing may come of any of this. But it's the kind of flow of ideas that we need to have in this city. We do it for transportation and health care and job creation. I think we ought to do it for sports as well. I suspect there are lots and lots of ideas out there just waiting for a place to land. Well, send them along.