Sport can and should be used as a catalyst to aid in the resuscitation of Bermuda's ailing tourist industry, according to legendary athletics coach Brooks Johnson.

Johnson, representing American company Strategic Resource Allocation Group (SRAG), is one of the chief movers behind next month's Bermuda International Walk Marathon slated for November 19, which is expected to attract some 500 visitors to the Island.

"Right now we have 340 people from the United States signed up to come here for the half-marathon and full marathon,'' said Johnson, noting how this was only the number of actual competitors and excluded others such as family members which would swell the total to 500.

"Basically, what we're trying to do is to demonstrate that sports and athletics can be an adjunct to the tourist industry here, and we can bring people from off island to the Island through sports and athletics.

"This is the first piece of what will hopefully be a mosaic of bringing other sporting events here.'' Johnson pointed to an American football event put on in the Bahamas that attracted some 16,000 visitors. And it is the intention of SRAG to put on both American football and basketball matches here in Bermuda in the future.

"We've proposed to the tourism people that we would like to have two American football teams come here and play, guaranteeing between 4,000 and 5,000 people. That's a pretty big number coming from off island,'' Johnson explained. "And the same thing with a basketball tournament.

"For the football we've sent a proposal for September of 2001, but I believe they're waiting on the success of this event before making any type of commitment.'' Johnson explained how the time had come where it was necessary for islands such as Bermuda to instigate events specifically designed to attract tourists if they are to compete for a greater share of the market.

He noted his involvement with Disney's Wide World of Sports in Orlando, Florida, and how their development of a sports specific venue had proved a boon for business.

"Disney realised that you now have to come with `value added' for the tourist dollar,'' continued Johnson, who has coached athletes to five Olympic Games and is also the coach of rising Bermudian sprinter Xavier James.

"You can't just say `Come to my place because it's nicer than the other places', you have to give people specific reasons for coming here.

"(Disney) spent $200 million on a 200 acre facility to bring in athletic events, and now people come, the kids come and they bring their parents, friends, siblings and everybody else.

"So the model is already there and what we would do, in microcosm here, is use sporting events to bring off island, or tourists.'' "You can't say `We're better than Bahamas or Barbados or Antigua or something', because people don't know the difference, Americans lump it all together.

"What you do say is `Come here because we have a great cricket match' or `Come here because your football team ... Morgan State is going to be playing South Carolina State'.

"We can get a couple of those MEAC teams, because they're just two hours away. And what we do is go to the alumni and say to the athletic department and say that we'll put this football game on and now they (universities) have a recruiting attraction for potential recruits.

"At the same time we get a list of the alumni, send out the brochures to the alumni asking them to come support their team in Bermuda for this weekend.'' There is also the possibility of combining such a sporting event with the already popular jazz festival and having both televised, thus affording an even wider promotion of Bermuda throughout the USA.

"Curtis Simon, who's the vice-president at BET, told me that if we did that they would come in and televise both the jazz festival and the football game, so they get two for one, along with the exotic appeal of an Island.

"So that's basically what we're about right now and this is the first and hopefully the beginning of something where we can sell the idea that we can produce athletic events here in Bermuda that make dollars and cents, as well as common sense.'' Brooks Johnson: Main mover behind the Bermuda International Walk Marathon.