Local Government
Marty Stanovich: First Tee Has Nothing to Hide
The First Tee Gulf Coast director sat down to walk through the nonprofit funding fight with Clerk Pam Childers, the kids the program actually serves, and why he never asks for money a commissioner isn’t willing to give.
Marty Stanovich has spent 55 years playing golf, and most of that time figuring out how to use the game to raise kids who don’t come from money into adults who do right by themselves and everyone around them. So when Escambia County Clerk Pam Childers froze a $4,500 payment to First Tee Gulf Coast last year and suggested, in court filings, that taxpayer money had funded a “party,” Stanovich came on the air to set the record straight.
Not a Pipeline to the PGA
First Tee doesn’t exist to mint pros. It exists for kids ages five to eighteen who otherwise wouldn’t have a sport.
“We don’t have rich kids in our programs. We have working families’ kids in our programs.”
Stanovich said the program leans on golf specifically because, unlike football, baseball, or basketball, it’s the only sport where players call penalties on themselves. No referee. No excuses. Just honesty, baked into the game, applied to life.
He’s watched it work. He described one family — a single mother of nine, navigating the fallout of her husband’s difficult return from military service — whose kids came through First Tee. Five of the nine graduated high school and went on to college scholarships. Two played college softball despite spending their childhoods on the golf course. One came back to the Warrington facility specifically to sign her scholarship there, “because she wanted to say thank you to the programs.” Another finished a criminal justice degree in three years and immediately applied to the Florida Highway Patrol.
The cost to families for an entire spring, summer, or fall season: about $125 total — not $125 a month, $125 for three seasons combined.
Where the Money Actually Goes
Stanovich pushed back hard on the idea that grant funds bankrolled a party. The county itself, he said, told First Tee how to handle it: hold a fundraising event, apply the discretionary grant to defray the event’s costs, and submit an invoice for reimbursement after the expense was already incurred and exceeded the request.
“Money is fungible. Virtually every nonprofit in town has a fundraising event of some sort.”
What that money supports isn’t glamorous. Phone service. Internet. Power to run the security system. $39,000 a year across seven insurance policies to protect kids, coaches, and staff. None of it makes headlines, all of it keeps the lights on.
The Timeline Problem
The county approved First Tee’s $4,500 request twice last year — both times by unanimous 5-0 votes, once in February and once in March. First Tee spent the money in April, with every reimbursement request submitted by April 21. The policy Childers later cited to deny payment didn’t take effect until May 1.
Since the denial, First Tee hasn’t gone back to the commission asking for more.
“Einstein solved that one… we’re not going to do the same thing over again and expect a different result.”
