Given the rise over the last few years in the popularity of girls lacrosse, it is still concerning that we don’t see more public and private support for the schools, organizations, and players. But one Tampa-based non-profit is working to alter the landscape through the financial support of corporate sponsors.
The New Tampa Women’s Athletic Foundation started in 2023 as a way to not only bring some financial support to girls lacrosse teams and players, but to also raise awareness.
“We saw a need to bring more value – to increase the women’s lacrosse and women’s sports in general – to sports that don’t have a traditionally strong foothold for women”, said Ementi Coary, co-founder of the New Tampa Women’s Athletic Foundation. “My wife and I were feeling the financial burden of having our daughters play high school, because you have to sell candy and all kinds of things to help the program and then when you go to play club ball, you’re finding yourself paying $1,200-$1,400 per girl.”
He continued, “And that doesn’t include travel or hotel days or any of that other stuff.”
While Ementi and his wife Tina included “New Tampa” in the name of the foundation, they had their sights set much wider.
“We came up with the name new Tampa women’s athletic foundation because we live in new Tampa, but it doesn’t mean that that’s the only area that we cover our our scope of the foundation”, he said. “We’re trying to make it aware, you know, some people feel like the New Tampa
Athletic Foundation is only for Cypress Creek high school and that’s kind of a bad myth.”
Ementi and Tina hold fundraisers like golf tournaments and other events to help generate the financial assistance needed to either fully support teams or help offset the high costs usually incurred by individual players. And while their efforts to date have been mostly centered near east Pasco county, they both have their sights set on being able to offer help on a much wider level.
“We will literally go anywhere in the state right from all the way in the Tampa Bay area to even working with one of our new board members that are gonna be joining us as Coach Simpson from St. Thomas University.”
Ementi said that perhaps part of the spark in him that led to creating this foundation with his wife was when he spent time as a college softball coach in Illinois and experienced first-hand the discrepancy between sports funding for boys and sports funding for girls. “I competed against the boys team left and right for funding” Ementi said. “The boys team was going to national championships and stuff like that and they were given more funds. Title IX is real. When you’re seeing all this money going to boys sports and the lack of funds coming for girls sports, it just hurts the girls.”
“That’s really our purpose”, Ementi continued, “is to help with whatever in our scholarships that we’re trying to do right now. Again, it is for girls that are going to college. Maybe we can give them $500 for books or something like that.”
In furtherance of the efforts of the Coary’s foundation, the New Tampa Women’s Athletic Foundation has partnered with Tampa Lax Report by way of sponsoring our 2023 and 2024 Senior All-Star Games. Since both non-profits have shared goals and ideals, helping raise awareness of the foundation through TLR allows both organizations to share in the process of lifting up programs and players that may be getting overlooked or underfunded.
Ementi went on to say, “We enjoy being involved with Tampa Lax Report, you know, pushing it forward. But to be very straight with you James, I mean the both of us go hand-in-hand, right? I mean you need one with the other and you know we were so excited that we were able to sponsor with you guys and we’re gonna keep doing that that and hopefully this year I’d like to make it a little bit bigger.”
Ementi and Tina’s foundation has been Tampa Lax Report’s single largest financial supporter, and the costs of our annual Senior All-Star Games would require a much larger registration fee if it weren’t for their sponsorship.
“I mean that’s one of the reasons why we partnered with Tampa Lax Report is because I truly believe in and what you guys are doing. I just hope that we can get more people to understand and back what we’re trying to accomplish.”
The next fundraising event being held by the New Tampa Women’s Athletic Foundation is a golf tournament on Friday, February 28th at Plantation Palms Golf Club. They will follow that event up with a Cornhole Tournament on Saturday, April 12th at the Dallas Bull in Tampa. Registration is still open for both events on the NTWAF website. You can also find them supporting the 2025 Tampa Lax Report Senior All-Star Game on Sunday, May 18th at Berkeley Preparatory School.